


Seasons of Love

by MargotCelvin



Series: The Nature of Losers [2]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anniversary, Birthday, But like just weed, Christmas, F/M, Fluff, Fourth of July, Graduation, Halloween, He's not a murderous clown, Holidays, Human Pennywise (IT), Implied Sexual Content, Losers Club (IT) Friendship, M/M, No Angst, Or At Least I Tried, Prom, Recreational Drug Use, Slice of Life, Swearing, Teenage Losers Club (IT), Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking, Valentine's Day, losers in love, of course
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2020-11-24 03:00:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 30,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20900546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MargotCelvin/pseuds/MargotCelvin
Summary: A look into the celebrations of the Losers Club during their final year of high school.Edit: I changed the title because this one came to me at work and I thought it fit better. I don't know how I just straight forgot about RENT but here we are.





	1. Summer

**Author's Note:**

> All the birthdays are from the Stephen King wiki site and the days are based on 2018/2019. This is in the same universe as Anytime Birdie. It starts just after the events in that story. I mean you probably don't have to read that one but it might be helpful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, welcome to the newest thing that has been taking over my life.

**Saturday, June 2nd \- Ben’s Birthday**

Ben wasn’t exactly sure why Pennywise had asked him to stay for an extra hour after they had closed. They did talk about adding and changing some of the desserts on the menu, but Mike was usually there for those things too. It was both of their menu after all.

Staying that extra hour would’ve been fine had they not had a busy night and the worst customer ever. Busy was fine. In fact, Mike and Ben thrived on busy. But this lady and her complaining had put the kitchen behind and they had to work even harder to stay on top of tickets. Ben hated when they fell behind, it always seemed to come back onto the others. They were the ones that had to deal with angry customers, and it was their pay that was affected, Ben’s wasn’t. Ben was still irritated as all hell on his drive back home.

The woman came in with her three children. Fine. They ordered an appetizer. Fine. It got sent back even though it was almost entirely eaten because it had ‘no flavor.’ Bullshit. It was one of Mike’s recipes, of course, it had flavor. All of the recipes the two of them came up with had flavor, but sometimes the other cooks struggled, not that Mike and Ben didn’t change them slightly on the nights they worked, but that wasn’t the point in this situation. Then they got their entrees. Fine. Then the woman’s salad got sent back because there was a hair in it. The biggest problem was that it was long, black, and straight. No one that came near their food had that kind of hair. Ben and Mike both wore hats to avoid their hair getting in the food. Bill was their server. And even if it had been Richie, his hair was curly and shorter than the hair that was in her salad, even when they straightened it, which they had done for fun a couple of times.

So, after Bev explained that the hair couldn’t belong to anyone in their staff, the woman demanded to see the owner. Pennywise was generally pretty good with customers like that, but even he had gotten annoyed. She had just been trying to get a free meal out of them, but he still charged her the full amount of her bill. She told Bill that they would never be back, he had just kind of shrugged at that. He had already accepted that he wasn’t going to get a tip out of them, he didn’t. He did get sympathy tips from a couple of the other tables that had witnessed all of the commotion. Ben had felt a little bit better about that.

He pulled into his driveway and turned off his car. He slumped back in his seat and sighed heavily. He thought about what he wanted to do for the rest of the night. He could always see if Bev wanted to come over and stay for the night. He could always pile up in his bed and watch some of the documentaries he had been wanting to watch for a while. He could always combine the two options. He would decide when he got inside.

He saw that all of the lights were out inside the house. His aunt must have gone out for the night. He didn’t remember her telling him that this morning, but really, he was still half asleep when she had told him what she was doing today. It would’ve been fine had Mike not called him at midnight that night to wish him a happy birthday. Mike really liked to be first at stuff like that. Ben thought he heard something inside when he went to unlock the door. But when he paused for a moment, and there was no sound, he decided that he was probably just tired. He really needed to take a nap. Ben opened the door and flipped on the light, not thinking that as he did that, six people were going to yell at him.

“Surprise!” Ben shrieked a little at the shouting. It wasn’t much, just enough to make Richie laugh really hard.

“Oh, I hate that I did that.” Bev came up to him and handed him a party hat. “Is this why I had to stay for an hour after work?”

“We only asked Pennywise to hold you back for like twenty minutes, I don’t know how he kept you for an hour,” Bev explained.

“We may, or may not, have bitched about that salad lady.”

“She was the f-f-fucking worst.” Well, Bill was still completely sober, which Ben kinda found funny. He had nothing against drinking or whatnot, clearly since he partook in those activities on their Friday adventures. They had gone out for a bit last night, but it wasn’t much since they all had to work open to close. Which wasn’t terrible since they had Sunday off.

“Despite her, your birthday still needs to be fun. So, what do you want to do?” Bev asked.

“I have a bunch of documentaries that I still wanted to watch. If you guys don’t care to do that, that would be cool.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

“Anything you want. They don’t get an option.” All of the guys behind her chuckled. They had already agreed that they would do whatever Ben wanted, even if it meant watching cult documentaries until four in the morning, which is what they did.

The rest of them had passed out by the time the third film was over. But Ben figured it was understandable seeing as they had worked all day and had thrown Ben an entire birthday party, including food, cake, drinks, and decorations. Ben was still awake when he looked over to Bev and tried to see if she was awake. She was in that spot between being awake and being asleep, so he kissed the top of her head to get her attention.

“We should probably go to bed,” he whispered to her when she looked up. She blinked a couple of times to completely wake up before she nodded and moved off of his shoulder. Ben followed her upstairs to his room. Ben looked back at his friends as they left and smiled at how his friends were sleeping. Richie was sitting on the larger armchair with Eddie curled up on him like a cat. Mike was slung across the loveseat with his head thrown back. Stan and Bill were sitting next to each other on the opposite end of the couch with a blanket around both of them. Stan had fallen asleep on Bill’s shoulder and Bill was resting his head on Stan’s. Ben was sure that they would take up most of the couch in a few hours.

Once they were in Ben’s room, they both started changing into pajamas. Bev kept a bunch of her clothes at his place since she spent more nights here than at her aunt’s house. Ben turned at looked at the freckles covering her back. He had once promised himself that he would give a name to everyone and connect them in constellations. He hadn’t gotten to all of them yet, but he was getting closer. Bev turned around when she felt him staring at her.

“What?” she asked as she pulled her sleep shirt down.

“Nothing just- thank you.”

“I didn’t do all that much.” Bev leaned against the dresser as she spoke, Ben had walked over to her during that time as well.

“You never did take credit for some of the things you did.”

“What are you talking about?” Sometimes Bev liked to act coy, especially when she was flirting. They may have been together for years, but that didn’t mean that Bev ever stopped flirting, especially with the guy she loved.

“I know you put all of this together. I also know that you threatened the other guys that they were going to do whatever I wanted because I can never convince them to watch documentaries with me.”

“I did say they didn’t get a choice.”

“So, thank you for making the best of what little bit of my birthday I got to celebrate.”

“You know, we can still celebrate it.”

“It’s technically not my birthday anymore.”

“It stops being your birthday when you go to sleep. And it definitely can’t be over, because I didn’t give you your gift.”

“Oh, you have a gift for me?”

“I mean, do I count as a gift?”

“Absolutely.”

“As much as I appreciate that, I did get you an actual gift.” Bev turned back around and pulled out a small wrapped package from the dresser she had been standing in front of. She handed it to Ben and smirked at him. “I hope you like it.”

“It’s from you, so I probably will.” Ben took the package before sitting on the bed. Bev sat next to him and waited patiently for him to open it. She wouldn’t tell him this, but she had hunted for weeks to find this present, and the thought of him not liking it was terrifying. Ben unwrapped the gift to see the cover of a book he had been wanting to read for years.

“Where did you-?” Ben hadn’t been able to find a new copy of The Devil in the White City in weeks, but it was a book he was dying to read. It was a book about a serial killer and architecture, what was there not to love about the book?

“It was a lot of work, but I remembered you saying that you wanted to read this, and I made sure to get the first addition since I know those are the ones you like the most.”

“I love it. Thank you.” Ben leaned over and kissed one of the freckles on Bev’s cheek. He definitely didn’t have a running tally of all the freckles on her that he’s kissed, shut up.

“You big fucking sap.”

“Yeah, but I’m your big fucking sap.”

“And I wouldn’t trade you for anyone else.” Neither of them paid attention to who closed the gap between them, but neither of them was going to question or complain. Especially when they slid into a familiar dance between them. They had been together long enough to know exactly what the other was trying to say with their actions. She was the one that pulled back first, it was almost entirely for air. But since she was here, she might as well say something, “I hope you enjoyed your birthday.”

“Oh, it’s not over yet.”

“Good.”

**Tuesday, July 3rd \- Mike’s Birthday **

“Can I interest you dudes in any dessert?” Richie asked his table; he would’ve sounded more professional had it not been Georgie and some of his friends. Richie wasn’t exactly a fan of Georgie’s friends, mostly because they didn’t understand how to tip, they were also assholes, but that was beside the point.

“Whatcha got Rich?” Georgie asked.

“All the normal stuff, but we also got birthday cake today.”

“Why do you have birthday cake?” Georgie’s friend asked, he was one of the ones that never tipped, Richie remembered this because of his stupid bowl cut. He was pretty sure that this kid was going to end up being a serial killer.

“It’s Mike’s birthday and he and Ben decided we needed a cake to celebrate. Ben got really excited and made enough cake for most if not all of the day. So, you want any?”

“Why would I give a shit about someone’s birthday? I don’t know this Mike kid.” There was serial killer again.

“I’ll take some to go, thanks, Rich.” Richie took some of their empty plates and made his way back to the kitchen. He heard Georgie say, “Stop being such an asshole, Mike is friends with my brother and is cooler than you’ll ever be,” as he was walking away. He pushed the door open with his back and saw Bill walk up to the table Georgie was at, more than likely just to harass him.

“Congratulations Mike, you’re officially cooler than a kid with a bowl cut,” Richie said as he dropped his dishes on the pile Stan was working on, who looked up and glared at him. “Don’t give me that look, I helped clean a table.” Stan rolled his eyes and went back to work.

“Thank you?” Mike looked up from his pan for half a second before going back to it.

“Georgie decided this.”

“Oh, then it’s definitely true,” Mike said through a laugh as he plated his food. Dinner wasn’t exactly in full swing, but it was on the downward slope so they still had plenty of tickets. Richie cut the to-go piece of cake and put it in the container before he went back out to the floor yelling that he was taking cake as he did, leaving the three back of house staff to themselves.

“You excited not to work tomorrow?” Ben asked after he called that an order was ready.

“Good God yes. I’m also excited to not have to stay sober tonight,” Mike responded.

“Hey, you make it sound like I don’t offer to switch with you like every time we go out.” Ben really did constantly offer although Mike almost always said no. Stan had offered a few times, but Mike always said no because he knew it was one of the only times Stan actually relaxed. The rest of them had offered as well, but Mike was generally fine with how their set up was, tonight was different though.

“Shut up you. I don’t care to stay sober, most of the time.”

“But since it’s your birthday this is different?” Stan asked from his station.

“Absolutely. I’m eighteen now and I want to get fucked up.”

“You act like you haven’t before,” Stan commented. He was telling the truth. Sometimes instead of going to the barrens, they would just camp out in the older barn on his grandparent’s farm, although that was generally when it was really cold.

“I’m going to pretend I don’t know what you’re talking about,” a fourth voice said. All three of them looked up to see their boss standing in the doorway. “You guys aren’t doing that at work, right?”

“No, sir,” Mike answered.

“And you’re not doing it before work?”

“Never,” Ben answered.

“Then I don’t care.” The three teens sighed in relief. Pennywise really was a chill boss when he liked you. “I just came back to check how everything was going. But I see you’re staying on top of tickets so I’m gonna leave and let you resume whatever conversation that you were having that I definitely didn’t hear all of.” He left the kitchen and probably went to go check on the front of house staff.

“If we had a different boss, we would be so fired,” Mike was still standing there staring at the door.

“You’re burning the chicken,” Ben said leaning over slightly before laughing at Mike’s mild freak-out. The rest of dinner service had gone pretty smoothly. Pennywise always knew when they had something planned because they were done cleaning up in record time. They had figured out that Mike picking them all up before work and heading straight out worked the best for them.

Mike really enjoyed that he wasn’t staying sober tonight. That made it sound like he was never drunk or high, it was just normally at his house and this was in a different environment. It was exciting.

“Bill, truth or dare?” Richie asked. Richie had taken the lead of starting most of their truth or dare games, this was usually because the boy had plans that he wanted to get to. Bill took a drink as he contemplated his options. He knew Richie’s dares could be brutal, he had only taken one of Richie’s dares and it ended with him having to give Richie half of his tips the next day.

“Truth.”

“Lame.”

“I would like to keep my tip money on Thursday.”

“That’s understandable. Okay, so what do I want to ask Big Bill?” Richie looked like he was thinking incredibly hard. “Did you ever sleep with any dudes before Stan? And if so, how many?”

“Yeah. There were three dudes that I actually slept with before Stan.” Derry may be small, but it was hilariously gay so it wasn’t really a shock that Bill could find dudes at parties to sleep with.

“Were there more that you just kind of messed around with? Because your phrasing suggests that there was.” Bev asked. If this were any other group, they probably would’ve made Bev wait until it was her turn to ask again, but they were all curious, except for Stan since they had had this conversation a month ago.

“Yeah. Not that many but drunk blowjobs in party bathrooms are pretty fun. And I don’t discriminate against gender, and it gets worse when I’m drunk.”

“Look, Stan, he’s a thot too,” Richie cooed to Stan, who just rolled his eyes and took another drink.

“I feel like we are playing a dangerous game having both of them drunk,” Bev sassed.

“Fuck you guys, Bill it’s your turn.”

“Birthday Boy, truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“I dare you to, throughout the night, get pictures of all of us without us knowing.”

“So, you want stalkergrams. Okay. And if I can’t get that done?”

“Richie gets to be you on Tinder.”

“Oh shit,” Mike swore under his breath. Richie squealed in excitement, he loved messing with his friends so much. “Why are you so excited?”

“Stan notices every picture taken of him,” Eddie answered for his boyfriend, who was still just kind of making weird noises at the situation. They all knew he was fine, just that he was far too excited at the prospect of being Mike on Tinder.

“That is true,” Stan agreed.

“I’ve tried,” Bill added. Stan turned and scrunched his eyebrows and then seemed like he suddenly remembered what Bill was talking about and turned back to the group. That interaction gave the wrong impression to the group, but it was actually pretty wholesome.

Bill had tried multiple times to get pictures of Stan, usually just playing some game with Georgie. But he had never gotten a picture that Stan hadn’t turned around for or made direct eye contact with the camera. Bill had pretty much given up on taking unknown pictures of Stan, instead just taking pictures and accepting that none of them would be a surprise.

“Okay, ignoring that. Ben, truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“I dare you to make a presidential inauguration speech like you just got voted into office.” Ben tried not to laugh as he stood up to make his speech. Ben took about half a second to decide if he wanted this to be a serious speech or not, but he couldn’t say anything serious at the moment.

“As your president, I will do my best to honor the values of this country. I promise not to be a dick like our previous Cheeto president and do things this country actually needs to succeed.” The Cheeto president line got all of them to laugh. “I have also decided to add a new office; the office of paranormal activity. This office will focus on the pursuit of knowledge when it comes to ghosts and aliens, because they’re both real and you can’t convince me otherwise.” Ben knew he was doing good since Richie wheezed as he was trying to breathe and laugh. “Don’t like this, that sucks. You’re stuck with me for four years suckers.”

Ben sat back down and waited for all his friends to stop laughing before he continued their game. Which took a hot minute. Surprisingly, Richie was the first to compose himself.

“Oh God, that would be the best inauguration speech to ever exist.” Richie had struggled a little with the word inauguration but pretty much anyone in their group would’ve struggled with that word in their current state.

“Holy shit, could you imagine Bev as the first lady?” Mike asked. Bev gasped and punched him the arm.

“No, I can’t. Babe if you become president we need to break up, for America’s sake,” Bev said putting a hand on Ben’s shoulder.

“Damn Mike, you’ve put me in such a strange spot.” Ben would never become president, but he didn’t want to be.

“Sucks to suck man.”

“Ben, you gonna keep the game going or not?” Eddie asked.

“Oh, right!” Ben scanned the circle and tried to figure out who he was going to ask. They would keep this game going for another few hours before they would call it a night. Mike sat in the passenger seat as Ben drove them back to Mike’s place.

“How was your birthday Mikey?”

“It was awesome.”

**Wednesday, July 4th \- Independence Day**

Mike woke up to the smell of biscuits and bacon coming from downstairs. He was incredibly confused since it was a little after ten so his parents and grandparents had definitely been working for five hours already. His head was groggy and he didn’t exactly remember how he got home last night, but he knew he had fun. He put on whatever clothes were on the top of his dresser drawers and made his way downstairs.

He was significantly less confused when he saw four of his friends in the kitchen making breakfast. He noticed that he was missing Eddie and Richie and partially didn’t want to think about where they ran off to. It was Bev that noticed he was there first.

“Morning,” she sounded way too cheery and awake for how long they were up last night.

“Morning. You guys are up early.”

“Not really. We were home a lot earlier than normal,” Ben said from the stove.

“Only because we have part two today,” Stan said mostly to his cup of coffee.

“Speaking of part two,” Bev started on what they could tell was going to be something long. “Richie and Eddie went out to restock and get a fun surprise. Also, Mike, you’re not staying sober tonight, I’m taking that job.”

“Hon, I told I would do it,” Ben tried but he got shut down pretty quick. Bev had made up her mind and it was not going to get changed.

“What fun surprise?” Mike asked.

“Well, you know what day it is, right?” Bev asked.

“The day after my birthday?”

“It’s also America’s birthday,” Ben added, seeing as he was their residential president as of last night.

“Oh yeah. So, did they go get fireworks?” To be honest, Mike never really cared about celebrating the Fourth of July. Not for any particular reason but because for a good chunk of his life he had to work this day, usually on the farm. He did always enjoy fireworks though.

“Yup and they went to that big ass store a few towns over,” Bev said as she jumped onto the counter to sit.

“I mean I’ve never been there but I’m gonna assume it’s cool.” Mike sat at the breakfast bar and started clearing some of the apps off of his phone. He noticed that his camera app was up and was suddenly a little concerned as to why. When he looked through his pictures the memory of Bill’s dare seemed to come back to him. Stan noticed what he was looking at when he went to fill up his mug again.

“So, how did your pictures turn out?” Stan asked before taking a sip of coffee, he knew that answer.

“I can’t believe you noticed every single time. I have like twelve photos on my phone of Stan staring directly at the camera while the rest of you didn’t notice.”

“Poor, poor boy.”

“Richie will be excited to hear about this when he gets back,” Bev said.

“What am I going to be excited about?” Richie asked as he walked into the kitchen.

“Stan noticed every picture I took of him.” Richie gasped and wrapped his arms around Stan. He wanted to pretend this wasn’t a normal thing for them but it was. Eddie sighed and mouthed that he was sorry to Stan, who shrugged with the shoulder Richie didn’t have his head on.

Richie would spend most of the day being Mike on Tinder and absolutely trolling everyone. Sometimes he would laugh really hard for no reason and Mike would sigh knowing that Richie was having way too much fun with this. He only stopped when they started packing up to head out to the barrens.

They had decided to leave some of the stuff out there since they were going to be back tonight, which ended up being very beneficial when it came to getting the party started sooner. You know, party being a relative term. The only downside to it being summer was that it took _forever_ to get dark enough for Richie when it came to fireworks.

He and Eddie had been having a debate for the past hour as to whether they should do their fireworks before or after Derry did their official ones. They finally decided that Derry’s would be a nice warm-up and seeing Richie’s afterward would be way better and not a disappointment.

Mike wasn’t going to question it. He was just fine sitting back and letting his friends figure out all of this. He was normally one of the people that had to plan bigger activities like this for them. It was nice not to this time. Not that his friends made him plan things, it just normally came with being the sober one. But he was fine with being sober, he didn’t feel the same need as some of his friends to let loose on a regular basis, he was too chill of a person to need that.

But he also liked making sure his friends were okay. That they were safe. That they were having fun and didn’t need to worry about work or school or the shitty things they had all been through for a few hours. He liked to know that they felt safe with him there. If they didn’t, more than just him would stay sober.

They watched Derry’s firework show, it was alright. Derry was a strange place; it had always been kind of weird around the Fourth. Apparently, Derry had a really dark history and one of the many tragedies that it had seen happened around this time. Ben knew which one it was but the rest of them didn’t.

Richie was right when he said that his fireworks display would be a lot better. While Derry mostly stuck to red, white, and blue fireworks, Richie said fuck that and instead bought every color that he could; which was all of them.

They lit up the sky with bright colors, knowing that there were probably people in Derry that could see them. At one point, Mike had looked down and noticed that the explosions of light could be seen on the water they were being launched from. But that didn’t last long since the slight current morphed the fireworks, something Mike didn’t really appreciate.

“You ready for the finale?” Eddie asked Mike, who had been staring at the sky the whole time. He had never seen a firework display this amazing in his whole life.

Mike almost audibly said wow at the final fireworks that went up. Richie had found a bunch that looked like sunflowers, and those are what he sent up, knowing how much one of them loved them. Mike had always liked sunflowers. His family had a bunch of them on the sunny side of the house, which was the side Mike always sat on when he was hanging out outside.

He remembered giving a bunch of those sunflowers to Georgie for making a meme for him. It was a good meme, it made him laugh a lot. Georgie didn’t tell him, but he knew that they had really helped him. Mike liked helping people. He felt like he was a better human because of it.

Richie and Bill made their way back up to where the others were sitting. The five of them that were sitting there began cheering, there were townspeople cheering too but the Losers couldn’t hear that.

“That was great guys!” Mike said he was a little tipsy at this point so it came out way more enthusiastically than he originally meant for it too.

“Thank you,” Richie said and took a bow, he was always so dramatic.

“How much did that cost?” Stan asked.

“I don’t have any money until we get paid again,” Richie said as he sat down next to Eddie, taking the drink that Eddie had been holding for him.

“I think it was worth it,” Bev added. Mike agreed but his friends were already on some other tirade by now, this one was Richie and Eddie bickering about Richie spending money he didn’t have and that they needed to stop encouraging him. God, he loved these idiots so much.

**Friday, July 13th \- Stan’s Birthday**

Stan was leaning on the sink trying not to fall asleep and was also pretending he wasn’t in real pain. It would’ve been fine had he not made some poor life decisions last night. But this was Stan and he was really good at making those, especially with an empty house and a boyfriend.

“Bruh, you look like shit,” Richie said as he popped up next to Stan.

“I made the mistake of letting Bill come over last night.”

“Oh boy. Do explain.” Richie seemed way too excited and way too intrigued for Stan’s liking.

“We picked up food on the way home from work and ate that up in my room. Then we put on a movie and then at midnight, he turned to me and said ‘happy birthday’ with a nickname I’m not going to tell you and then we did some stuff and I did not get much sleep after that.”

“That is not enough details for me Stanley and you know this.”

“Well, it’s all you’re going to get.” Stan flicked some dishwater at Richie.

“For now.” Richie started backing out of the kitchen as he laughed evilly. When Stan asked what that meant Richie just continued to laugh until he was out of the kitchen.

“You know he’s going to make you tell us what happened later, right?” Mike asked looking over the expediting station. The two of them didn’t really have or need an expeditor but they still had the station, mostly for the other kitchen crew.

“Oh, fuck me,” Stan said as his head fell back down.

“I think Bill did that already,” Ben whispered to Mike, although it wasn’t really a whisper since Stan could very obviously hear it.

“I will stab you with a fork.” 

“Why are you always thr-thr-threatening people when I c-come back here?”

“You just come back here at the fun times,” Stan said as he turned and faced his boyfriend.

“No, the f-f-fun t-times were last n-night.” Bill dropped his voice as he got closer.

“Keep it up, and it will be the only time that we ever do that.”

“Nah. You l-l-loved it.”

“Maybe, but I love messing with you more so I’ll suffer if it means you’re miserable.” Bill rolled his eyes and smirked at Stan before he remembered the real reason he came back there.

“T-table th-th-thirty is gone.”

“Okay, I’ll go grab those dishes. I’m sure you have customers.” Bill just shrugged as a response. He had a few tables left, but they would be okay for the moment. “Was there something else you wanted to tell me?”

“I’m j-j-just excited for t-tonight.”

“You make it sound like we’re doing something tonight.” Bill shrugged again; Stan backhanded him in the shoulder. “I am not defiling Grandma’s home like that.”

“Are you talking about my grandma?” Mike asked.

“Yes. She said I could call her Grandma, so get fucked Mike.”

“I want to, does that count?” The back and forth banter continued for a few moments before the final orders were out so they could clean up.

They made it out to the barrens in record time since Mike had picked them all up for work so they could head straight out. Stan and Bill actually got to sit inside the truck, which was weird but a nice change of pace.

They were all so used to the routine of their barrens adventures that everything was set up and rolling five minutes after they got there. That probably meant that they were out there way too much, but that didn’t matter to them. They liked it out here. They were away from people and you had to know how to get here and not fuck up your car, which they did since they essentially made the path. The barrens have always been a nice escape for them. Had been for years.

“Alright, Stan, truth or dare?” Richie asked. He had asked to go first and obviously picked Stan. He knew pretty much exactly what Richie was going to ask.

“Truth.”

“What was the nickname Bill called you that you refused to tell me earlier?” Stan sighed aggressively; he knew it was coming but it didn’t help much.

“You didn’t tell him?” Bill asked.

“No. It’s special to me, okay shut the fuck up.”

“So, you gonna tell me or take a punishment.”

“Birdie. Bill calls me Birdie sometimes, like last night.”

“That is so fucking adorable,” Ben said. He must have really meant it since he seemed like he had tears in the corners of his eyes. Which was a really nice thing when it comes from Ben. If you can make the biggest sap in Derry to tear up, you know it had to be really romantic.

“Thanks Ben.” Stan felt a little better since Ben said it was cute and Richie didn’t make any ridiculous comments about it. “So, Ben, truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“I dare you to let Bill make you a drink that you have to drink.” This would seem like a pretty tame dare, but Bill was really bad at making drinks. Anyone who met Bill and knew how smart he was would think he would know how to make drinks, but he didn’t. Making a good drink is all about the proportions and Bill was very bad at those. Ben groaned slightly as Bill got up and went to their makeshift bar, which was really just their assortment of alcohol on the bed of Mike’s truck.

“You just wanted more of the weed to yourself.” Ben’s comment wasn’t too far off since Stan did take another hit but that hadn’t really been his intention.

“Or I just think it’s highly entertaining when you get shitfaced.” Bill handed Ben his drink, who looked at it skeptically.

“I did try,” Bill said as he sat back down. He had also gotten Stan another drink although Stan was being smart and just drinking bottled stuff since no one could fuck that up. Ben took a sip of the drink and then proceeded to cough. “That bad huh?”

“You were so close this time. You just didn’t put enough mixer in there.” Bill shrugged. Ben took another drink; he didn’t cough this time since he knew how alcoholic it was going to be this time. “Mike, truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“I dare you to let Richie be you on Tinder again.”

“God fucking dammit. Fine.” The last time had been hilarious so it seemed only natural that someone would make Mike let him do it again. It had produced some pretty hilarious conversations that Mike would read on occasion for a good laugh.

Richie still had Tinder downloaded on his phone from the last time he did this so he just had Mike log in on his phone. Richie argued that that way it was a surprise for everyone. Mike didn’t really care that much.

“Bev, truth or dare?”

“Truth.” Richie was too busy swiping to make any comments.

“What celebrity do you hate the most for a petty reason and why?”

“Gwyneth Paltrow. She’s so fucking uppity and thinks she’s better than other people and I find it irritating. She’s a pretty good actress but I would beat the shit out of her if tried to tell me how to live my life.”

“I feel,” Eddie added.

“Eddie, since you commented, truth or dare?” Bev asked.

“Dare. Although I say that hesitantly.”

“I dare you to sit on Richie’s lap until your next turn,” Richie looked up when heard his name and sat his phone down. He could continue swiping in a bit.

“Okay?” Eddie scooted over to where his boyfriend was sitting and sat down on the lap that he very used to sitting on. “I don’t see how this is that hard of a dare.”

“Oh, it’s not hard for you, it’s hard for Richie.”

“I didn’t mean to spill those drinks on you.”

“It’s too late now.”

“I’m still confused.” About ten seconds passed before Eddie spoke again, “Oh god you are so mean. I love it.”

“What the fuck, I trusted you.”

“You made me watch every single Sharknado movie. And you didn’t even let me get drunk beforehand.”

“We were at your house.”

“You act like we haven’t gotten drunk in my room before.” Eddie turned back to the group, to let his boyfriend suffer in silence. “Anywho, Stan, truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“Well, we all know you have a party outfit,” Stan rolled his eyes but didn’t interrupt as Eddie continued, “do you have an ‘I’m 100% gonna get laid’ outfit?”

“I wanna say no, but I know the answer is yes.”

“You gonna explain because now I’m curious?” Mike asked.

“It consists on my tightest pair of skinny jeans, that my parents don’t know I own, and a flannel that I stole from Bill a like a month and a half ago. But I’ve worn it three times around Bill, and it has ended the same way every time.”

“Firstly, those are leggings with pockets and they make your ass look nice, what do you want from me?” Stan took Bill’s classic response and just shrugged. “And secondly, you look really cute in my clothes.”

“Wait, are you talking about the jeans I got you as a joke like sophomore year?” Richie asked. Stan nodded, partially surprised Richie remembered that he was the one that got them for Stan since Richie was really drunk when they ordered them, but then again so was Stan. “You’re right Bill, they do make his ass look nice.”

Eddie acted like he was innocently adjusting his position, but he was doing it on purpose. Eddie knew exactly how to move to get a certain reaction out of Richie. Richie whined and tried so hard not to get turned on. That was why Bev made Eddie sit on his lap. It was a long-standing rule with them, get turned on and get punished. And said punishment changed based on who it was and what the circumstances were. Richie’s punishments were always the worst and that was by design.

“Eddie, I love you but please stop.”

“Why?” Eddie asked way too innocently for Richie to be okay.

“For the love of God, Stan pick someone,” Richie high-key sounded like he was breaking and that entertained all of them to no end.

“Bev, truth or dare.”

“Dare.”

“I dare you to let Richie tweet from your account.” Bev groaned, Richie tweeted the weirdest things and it only got worse when it was part of a dare. He also figured he would let Richie get back at her for the dare he was still suffering through. “You can wait until after Eddie is off of him though.”

“And if I forget?” she asked.

“He gets to do it more than once.” She sighed out of her nose; it was a good punishment since it kept her from pretending to forget.

“Fine. Mike, truth or dare?” She was slightly annoyed, her dare was going to be brutal, he picked truth. “Who’s the last girl you slept with?”

“We talking all the way or?”

“All the way.”

“It was Stephanie, in her car, like two weeks ago, after work.”

“You fucked someone in their car? I’m so proud of you,” Richie said, he expected Eddie to move again but he didn’t. And it definitely wasn't because they had done the same thing and he had enjoyed it immensely.

“It’s not the first time that I’ve done that. Anyways, Eddie, truth or dare.” Eddie made a disappointed noise as he slid off of Richie’s lap.

“Dare.”

“I dare you to whisper something in Richie’s ear that you know will turn him on.”

“What the fuck. Why is it torture Richie day? What did I do?”

“It’s what I asked for for my birthday,” Stan commented.

“Fuck. You.”

“So, what’s your strategy to keep from losing?” Ben asked.

“I’m going to think of terrible, terrible things. Like Bowers.” Eddie leaned over and started whispering as the rest of them laughed. “Oh God, it gets worse the longer you keep going.”

Richie seemed like he was in actual pain but it was entertaining to everyone in the circle. None of them could feel too bad since Richie had done almost the exact same thing to all of them. So, this just seemed like fair play.

Eddie finally leaned away from Richie, who sighed heavily and leaned forward. Eddie looked really triumphant as he took a drink, no one was going to ask what he said. They were all scared.

“God, that was like actual torture.”

“I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not.” Eddie did at least kiss Richie’s cheek to make him feel a little better. Which surprisingly worked. “Bill, truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“I dare you to tell Stan something that’s true that you haven’t told him yet.”

“In front of all of you?” Eddie nodded. Something did pop into Bill’s head, but it was something that he didn’t really want to talk about in front of all of them. But there was nothing else that came to mind. Bill just stared at Stan for a moment, which made Stan very nervous.

_God, why does Stan have to look gorgeous all the time? Why am I such a big fucking sap? And why can’t I just spit it out? _Bill was arguing with himself. He had wanted to tell Stan this for a couple of weeks now but he had always chickened out. _You know what, fuck it._

“I love you,” Bill said in a hurry. It was still slow enough for Stan and the others to hear it. Stan just sort of stared at Bill for a moment, silent.

“Well, it’s about fucking time you said it.”

“Wait, what?” That wasn’t exactly the reaction that Bill thought he was going to get. He figured he would either get an ‘I love you too’ or a ‘the fuck bitch’ but not what he got.

“You’re not exactly subtle. You also still haven’t completely figured out when I’m really asleep and when I’m half awake. Also, Georgie totally ratted you out.”

“That little bitch.”

“Hey,” Stan said as he poked Bill’s cheek, bringing his attention back over. “I’m glad you said it because I feel the same. I just can’t like say it yet.”

“I can wait until you can.”

“You two are so fucking gross,” Bev said through a smile. This summer had been one of the first times she had seen both of them genuinely happy in a long time. She knew she wasn’t going to have to worry about them losing that happiness in each other. It was a happiness that radiated to other people, one that was infectious, one that made other people feel the warmth between the two of them. Stan had told her something similar when they had been talking about her and Ben’s relationship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ben's Birthday:  
I’m trying really hard to play with perspectives of the losers that I don’t normally write for so I hope this is a good attempt at Ben (and a little bit of Bev).  
Also, The Devil in the White City is a real book and it is really good. It’s about H. H. Holmes and the Chicago Worlds Fair. It’s definitely not for everyone but it’s good if you like those kinds of things.
> 
> Mike's Birthday:  
I love Mike so much and I wanted to make sure I did justice to him. I don't know if I did it well but a girl can hope.  
Also, I'm still working on new perspectives so hopefully this was okay. 
> 
> Independence Day:  
Fun fact: I haven't been to a fireworks display thing in years because I've had to work. Also, I don't know if they have sunflower fireworks but they do in my dreams. 
> 
> Stan's Birthday:  
I love these nerds so fucking much.


	2. Autumn

**Tuesday, September 18th \- Georgie’s Birthday **

“Is Stan coming over after school for my birthday?” Georgie asked on their way to school. It was a strange question to Bill. He hadn’t thought to invite Stan over, it was generally just him and his brother. Their dad worked long hours and their mom was currently performing in the Portland orchestra, so neither of them would be there for Georgie’s birthday dinner. The whole family had gone to Disney World a month ago to celebrate his birthday instead, so Georgie wasn’t mad.

“I d-d-didn’t invite him. Did you w-want me to?”

“That would be cool. I like Stan.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I like him?” Georgie asked it like it was the stupidest question that he could ever ask.

“I d-d-don’t know. J-just didn’t think about it.”

“Well, he makes you happy, right?” Bill nodded as an answer, he had noticed that his brother had looked up at him instead of staring at his phone for a moment. “Well, then I like him. Plus, he doesn’t treat me any differently just because I only have one whole arm. Not even for baseball stuff.”

Georgie would never admit it to anyone but Bill, but the fact that Stan didn’t treat him differently for baseball stuff meant a lot to him. One of Georgie’s bigger fears, after he was found, was that he would have to give up baseball. He had been the best player on his T-ball team before some asshole decided he didn’t need a right hand. But Georgie had never let that stop him. Here he was, the starting pitcher on the JV team as a freshman. He was in line to take Stan’s spot next year on the varsity team.

“I’ll ask h-him if he w-wants to come.”

“Thanks, Billy.”

“You don’t have th-th-therapy tonight, d-do you?” Georgie usually had his therapy appointments every Tuesday at 3:30. Bill had been taking him to them for a few years now.

“No, we rescheduled because it’s my birthday. I’ll need you to take me on Thursday though.” Bill nodded; he didn’t care to take his little brother to his therapy sessions. Georgie had been seeing this woman for three years, she seemed to be helping a lot.

Bill parked in his normal spot. All of the losers parking in one of the back corners so that they could all park together. Bill noticed that Stan and Ben’s cars were there, which meant that Stan, Bev, and Ben were all at school already. The two brothers waved goodbye to one another at the door and went their separate ways.

Georgie wandered to his locker and heard some snickering from some of the assholes in his grade. Every grade in Derry had some people that like cause trouble. For Bill, it was Bowers and all his friends. For Georgie, it was Robbie Strout. Robbie was just as much mouth as Bowers was, but he wasn’t nearly as much bite. He also hated being called Robbie so that was all Georgie called him. He had left Georgie alone for a couple of years, but since he had become third string for the JV team, Georgie seemed to be a fun target.

“Happy birthday cripple.”

“Thanks, Robbie, I didn’t know you cared enough to remember when my birthday was.” Rob didn’t really have a comeback and didn’t really get a chance to respond before Georgie’s friends came and swept him away. Georgie called them his friends, but he didn’t really like any of them. They were mildly entertaining but they were kind of assholes. That became blatantly clear at the end of the day.

Georgie had been trying to get as much of the green glitter out of his hair as possible before Bill came back to the truck. Richie had seen him and looked sympathetic to the small Denbrough, but that didn’t help his situation. Eddie had wished him a happy birthday before hugging him tightly, getting glitter on himself. Bill came out a few minutes after the other two left and just gave him a questioning look instead of actually asking what was going on.

“My friends threw glitter on me for my birthday. I no longer have friends.”

“You’re l-l-lucky it’s your b-birthday or I would m-make you w-walk home.” Bill ruffled Georgie’s hair out of habit and came out of it with a handful of glitter.

“Don’t lie, you’d make me sit in the bed of the truck if you still don’t.”

“Get in the t-t-truck. Asshole.”

“Oh, I get to sit in the truck. That your birthday gift to me?” Bill rolled his eyes at his brother as they both got in his truck, Georgie tried his hardest not to get glitter everywhere, but it was glitter, so it didn’t matter. Bill would be vacuuming green glitter out of his truck for another six months. “Did you ask Stan about coming over tonight?”

“I did.”

“So, is he coming over or not?”

“He is.”

“Cool.” Georgie tried to hide the small smile that crept onto his face, Bill didn’t see it but he knew it was there.

Georgie wasn’t sure why he liked Stan as much as he did. Maybe it was because he made fun of his brother which was entertaining. Maybe it was because Stan treated him like he would any other person. Maybe it was because Stan felt like a second older brother to him. Whatever the reason was, he was cool with it.

When they finally got home, Georgie went to take a shower to hopefully get the glitter out of his hair. It didn’t completely work but at least he wasn’t shitting glitter all over the place. He had kind of been hoping that Stan would be there already. He was a little disappointed when it was still just Bill in the house, although he was still happy to see his brother. He had been seeing a lot more of Bill this year since he quit the football team. Georgie would never admit it, but he was really glad that Bill wasn’t playing football anymore, those people were assholes.

“So, what’s for dinner, my dude?”

“Wh-wh-whatever you want.”

“Can we just order Chinese food?”

“I can m-make something.”

“Dude, you can’t cook for shit.”

“True. We can or-order when St-Stan gets here.”

“Cool cool.” Georgie pulled out his phone and opened his group chat. His friends were trying to convince him to sneak out after dinner and get drunk with them. He had been trying to think of a good excuse for the entire day. He wasn’t against underage drinking, he couldn’t with Bill as his brother, he just had no interest in it. Georgie was one of those people that liked to have control of things, especially himself, and he knew that if he drank, he would lose control.

He hadn’t always been like this. He used to just be fine doing whatever people told him to do. Although, that changed pretty quickly with the circumstances that caused him to lose part of his arm.

“Who you t-t-texting there?”

“My friends.”

“Then why do you l-look sad?”

“They want me to go drinking with them, something about it being my birthday and other shit. I just don’t want to and I don’t know what to tell them.”

“Just t-tell them you d-don’t want to. If their your fr-friends, they’ll understand.”

“My friends aren’t as cool as yours. They kinda suck.”

“Then st-stop being friends with them. D-don’t make the same m-mistakes I did.” The doorbell ringing interrupted their brotherly moment. “I’ll g-get that.”

Georgie knew who was going to be at the door. He also knew that Bill was right. He knew he really should be hanging out with the people he knew liked him and wasn’t going to push him to do something he had no interest in doing. Georgie was pretty sure his therapist told him the same thing when he complained about these guys a few weeks ago but that wasn’t the point right now.

Georgie texted one of his older friends that he hadn’t hung out in a while, also something his therapist told him to do, asking if they wanted to come over after dinner. He pocketed his phone as Stan made his way into the kitchen.

“Sup squirt.” Georgie wasn’t sure where the nickname came from or when it started but he wasn’t too against it.

“Waiting for you because I wanted food.”

“We’re g-g-getting Chinese food.”

“You could’ve ordered for me, it’s not like I change my order, ever.” Georgie blankly stared at his brother, who shrugged as a response. Stan placed their order while Georgie checked his phone. His friend was down for coming over as long as there was cake, Georgie was glad to see he hadn’t changed.

“Hey Stan, did you bring cake with you?”

“Yeah, it’s in the living room. Your gift is in there too.” Georgie got up and tried not to seem too eager to see what Stan had gotten him. The cake was simple and definitely bought from the premade case of that bakery that Stan has been known to go to. Stan was one of those people who really loved to support local businesses. Georgie figured his gift would be something local too. He was surprised to only see an envelope with his name on it.

Stan hadn’t really closed it so it was easy for Georgie to open it. He saw a birthday card that had a joke about getting old, even though he was four years younger than Stan was. Georgie opened the card, not expecting anything to be in there, so he didn’t catch whatever it was that fell out of the card. Georgie read the rest of the card and then picked up whatever fell when he finally saw what it was, he thought he was going to shriek.

“Where the hell did you find a signed Sandy Koufax baseball card?”

“Not important, what’s important is that it’s yours now.” Georgie stared at the card. It was Sandy’s rookie card. Sandy had always been Georgie’s favorite pitcher; he didn’t really know why but he was.

“Thank you,” Georgie’s voice was small as he thanked Stan. The rest of Georgie’s birthday went really well. Their food was at least warm, which was somewhat of a surprise when it came to the Chinese place in Derry. Georgie’s friend came over and destroyed all of them at Monopoly, he didn’t even cheat. Stan ended up staying the night, not that he was overly surprised by that, so they watched movies until three in the morning, which wasn’t the best idea since they had school the next day but it was fun at the time which is what mattered. Georgie didn’t realize it until a few months later, but that was probably the best birthday he had had in a long, long time.

**Wednesday, October 31st \- Halloween **

“That asshole realizes we have school tomorrow, right?” Stan asked from where he was seated on Bill’s bed. Stan already had his costume on and was just waiting for Bill to finish getting ready so they could go.

“P-p-probably not.”

“How much longer are you going to be? We picked stupidly easy costumes for a reason.” Stan had come over right after school and they had really only been getting ready for the past thirty minutes. What they did during that free time was not anything that they were going to tell Richie.

“I can’t g-get this to st-stay in my hair.”

“Come here.” Bill walked over to the bed and sat down in front of Stan before handing him the headband and bobby pins he was trying to get to work. Stan sat the headband on Bill’s head and noticed how it almost instantly started to slide down the back of his head. It would take eight bobby pins to hold the headband in place.

Once the headband was securely in place, Stan kissed the nape of Bill’s neck. He didn’t know why he did, but he did. Bill turned around Stan wanted to pretend that he didn’t know what that look was, but he did.

“Are you s-s-sure we have to go to this p-party? Seems p-p-pretty lame.”

“Yeah, we do. You made the mistake of giving Richie a firm yes.”

“He was s-so excited.”

“This is the first ‘cool’ party he’s been invited to. He’s excited. I mean so are the others, but Richie is excited to harass new people.” Bill rolled his eyes slightly before closing the space between him and Stan.

“Come on, we’re already running late.”

“Just a f-f-few more minutes?” Stan wanted to pretend he could act like he was mad or going to say no, but both of them knew he would cave at the sad look on Bill’s face.

“If you mess up that headband, I will stab you.” Bill didn’t really agree before he dove right in. He had once thought that kissing Stan was like an addiction, but he had more recently decided that it was a privilege that he was not going to be sharing, ever. This was absolutely what he thought at this moment. Maybe it was the fact that they both had a reputation when it came to getting drunk at parties.

Bill also didn’t know where this weird possessiveness type thing came from but he wanted to believe that it came from something good. He wanted to protect Stan, whether it be from the boy himself or anyone else in the world.

Bill wanted to mark up Stan’s skin so much if only to show everyone else at this shitty party they were going to go to that the boy with soft curls and a mischievous smirk was taken. But Stan wasn’t okay with that at the moment, so he didn’t dare.

They only pulled apart for more than air when Stan’s phone buzzed on Bill’s bedside table. Bill said something about the fact that they should ignore it but Stan ignored him and grabbed his phone. Stan knew who it was going to be.

“It’s Richie asking when we’re going to be there because they’re ready to go.”

“Is th-th-that how he phrased it?”

“No. He said stop fucking and get over here I’m ready to fucking party.”

“That’s better.” They finally grabbed their overnight bags, put on their shoes and made their way out the door. They all met up at Ben’s aunt’s house since the party was down the street. They didn’t bother knocking since Ben had put in their group-chat that the door would be unlocked.

Richie had large green spots painted all over his body with plastic bolts coming out of his neck. That must have been how Eddie spent most of the time he was over at Richie’s getting ready before sneaking out. Eddie’s costume was a simple lab coat, black gloves, and safety goggles that he had sitting on top of his head at the moment. Ben and Bev had white shirts that Bev had splattered with fake blood and masks that looked like the mouths and eyes were stitched shut. Ben had a fake bat with fake nails sticking out of it. Bev didn’t have any visible weapons but she was wearing a black book bag, so who knows that she had on her. It was Mike’s costume that made Bill just stop and stare for a moment.

“M-M-Mike, what the f-fuck are you wearing?” Mike turned toward him, tipped his hat and smiled, not really answering. But to his credit, the costume kind of spoke for itself. It was one of those blow-up ostriches that made it look like he was riding it.

“You wanna see something funny?” Mike asked.

“I swear to God if chase me around this house again, I will beat you with this bat,” Ben started before he had really even gotten all of his question out, which caused Mike to burst out laughing.

“It seems fitting that Stan’s the devil,” Richie said trying to copy Stan’s normal deadpan sass tone, he was failing, Richie's voice had always been too expressive for that. 

“Keep it up, I’ll send you to hell early.”

“You make it sound like that’s where I was going to end up anyway.”

“You’re n-not welcomed in Heaven,” Bill added. Stan laughed at the pained noise Richie made.

“Why is Stan wheezing?” Bev asked.

“Bill roasted Richie better than any of us could,” Eddie answered.

“And I missed it? Fuck!” Bev said before she also started laughing. They were all able to pull themselves together enough to actually go to the party. Some of them (Bill and Stan) definitely hadn’t been stalling because they didn’t really want to go to the party.

The party was exactly what they all thought it was going to be. Loud music. Way too many people. At least there were drinks. All of them were pleasantly tipsy when Bill noticed a very familiar-looking person out of the corner of his eye.

“Georgie?” The owner of the name turned around and smiled at his brother and his friends. He was dressed as a zombie, one with only one arm. Georgie thought it would be funny if he came without wearing his prosthetic, and it was. He had scared a few people that didn’t know already and it was only going to get funnier as the people around him got more and more intoxicated.

“What’s up?”

“What are you doing here?” Bill asked. This was the last place he expected to see his little brother on a Wednesday night.

“Peter’s on the baseball team and he invited a bunch of the JV kids, well at least the ones he likes. Which included me. I figured I’d show up, maybe I could make some baseball friends that aren’t awful. Shirly told me it was a good idea when I brought it up yesterday.”

“Peter?” Bill wracked his brain for anyone he could think of that was named Peter in their class. He came up empty.

“He’s one of the outfielders. He’s a good kid,” Stan interjected.

“And he’s a senior?” The yearly Derry Halloween party was always thrown by a senior.

“Peter is a sophomore, but his brother, who is the one throwing the party, is a senior,” Georgie clarified.

“Who’s his brother?” Bill was so, so confused. Georgie and the others had a lot of fun watching this train wreck in the making.

“Markus,” Mike finally answered.

“Glasses, red curly hair?” Stan nodded. “Oh…”

“That didn’t sound like a good noise,” Richie whispered to Stan, who shrugged.

“Well, Georgie if you need anything just call me or find one of us or something,” Bill got out in a hurry, he really just needed his brother to go away for a moment. Georgie nodded and walked back to where some of his friends were. Bill turned to his friends before he spoke again. “I know Markus, not in the way the rest of you do.”

“Is he one of the dudes you fucked?” Mike asked. Despite somewhat being friends with Bill all this time he really didn’t know much when it came to his personal life.

“No. But he has a tongue piercing that not a lot of people know about, I know about it.”

“Wait wait wait. Quiet Markus who is somehow popular but is still stupidly nice and innocent, has a tongue piercing?” Bev asked. She liked Markus; he was sweet. He was on the ‘if Ben ever dies and I have to move on with someone in Derry’ list. When she told Ben that, he made a joke about them only being able to have leprechauns for children and she threatened to break up with him through a laugh. That list was a joke anyway.

“I don’t know if it was real or one of those fake ones, but it was really nice.” 

“I’m not getting a tongue piercing,” Stan added.

“Understandable.”

“I’ll get one for you Billiam.” They all turned to look at Richie, who seemed like he only just caught on to what he said.

“You wanna try that again?” Eddie asked, no one was sure if he was actually annoyed or not, the music was kind of drowning it out.

“I’ll get one for you darling?”

“Better.”

“Wait, do you want me to get one?”

“We’ll talk about it later.” They would talk about it later and Eddie would admit that he had thought about it before when Richie had talked about it during one of their barrens trips. He was fine with the idea of Richie getting one but he was not okay with the idea of not being able to kiss him like he wanted to until it healed. They decided that it would be discussed further at a later date.

Richie would end up getting a tongue piercing.

**Saturday, November 3rd \- Eddie’s Birthday**

Eddie woke up to the sound of the knocking at his window. There was someone that he was hoping it would be, but he had definitely told Eddie that he had an early morning so he couldn’t spend the night. It had hurt like hell when he had said that earlier, but Eddie had said okay with a smile like it was nothing. The continued knocking pulled Eddie out of his head again. Eddie turned on his bedside lamp before he actually for up.

This was a normal thing that happens when Eddie gets woken up, he gets really sidetracked and loses his train of thought easily. He had gone to bed almost immediately after he got home from work, not wanting to deal with his mom and her asking why he seemed so sad. Then he would have to tell her that his relationship with Richie went a lot farther than she thought it did and that just seemed like way too much work for the day before his birthday.

Eddie sighed as he moved the curtains, half expecting to have to scare off some bird or animal that was being an annoying shit this late at night. But when he saw what was on the other side, he was very confused, but also very happy.

Richie smiled at him from where he was crouching on the roof. Eddie unlocked the window and pushed it open, shivering at the cold air that was suddenly invading his warm room. Richie hopped in and shut the window; it didn’t help Eddie not be cold for a moment. Eddie went to ask Richie what he was doing here when Richie just shushed him by setting his finger against Eddie’s lips and looking at his watch. Eddie narrowed his eyes until Richie moved his finger and quickly replaced it with his lips, again before Eddie could ask anything.

Richie kissing him made Eddie momentarily forget all the questions that had been running through his head a second ago. Eddie pulled Richie closer to him using the backpack straps that encompassed his shoulders. Richie’s fingers dug into Eddie’s hips in the most intoxicating way.

Eddie was pretty sure he heard his phone ding saying that he got a text message, but he really didn’t care since it was about the same time Eddie opened his mouth so that this makeout session could go further. Although Richie very quickly pulled away, it really wasn’t all that quick, it was just a lot sooner than Eddie was okay with. When he frowned up at Richie, his boyfriend pecked his lips on Eddie’s forehead, who in turn smirked at the lanky kid in front of him.

“Happy Birthday Eds,” Richie whispered. Eddie turned at looked at the digital clock that sat on his bedside table. He noticed that it was a few minutes after midnight, meaning it really was his birthday.

“I thought you couldn’t come over because you had an early morning or something?”

“Yeah, this was my early morning activity. I had to sleep so that I could come over early and surprise you.”

“Why didn’t you just come over earlier and we could’ve just gotten up at this time?” Richie’s face dropped slightly, meaning he did not think about that at all. “I’m still happy that you came over. It wouldn’t have been my birthday if you didn’t say it first, or at least try to.”

“I mean I think someone texted you saying happy birthday, but I would’ve said it first had my tongue not been in your mouth.”

“I’ll count it.” Eddie reached up and locked lips with his boyfriend again. Richie pulled away again, causing Eddie to make a whining noise.

“You know, I had actual plans for tonight that didn’t involve just making out in the middle of your room.”

“Will there be some making out at some point?” Richie smirked and poked the tip of Eddie’s nose.

“Of course, and much, much more. But first, I have a surprise for you. You should probably reply to whoever texted you.” Eddie rolled his eyes at the strange antics of his boyfriend. Eddie picked his phone up off of his bedside table, unplugging it so he didn’t have to hunch down to text.

**Mike: Happy Birthday!!! You’re an adult!! **

**Eddie: Thanks Mike <3 **

**Mike: Was I the first one?**

**Eddie: Sadly, you were the second **

**Mike: Who beat me? I set an alarm and already had that message drafted out**

**Eddie: Who do you think beat you? **

**Mike: Fucking Richie. Piece of shit **

Eddie heard the click of a lighter but he was too busy chuckling at the annoyance he could feel coming from Mike’s text. He and Richie had been in a competition to say happy birthday to him first since they were in eighth grade. Eighth grade and freshman year had been Mike, but the next three years were Richie. It didn’t help that Richie was generally already at Eddie’s house at midnight.

Eddie turned to Richie to tell him it was Mike when he saw why he had heard a lighter. Richie was holding a large cupcake with a candle in it. He was smirking at Eddie; it was his nervous smirk. He had probably made the cupcake by himself and was worried that he had royally fucked it up.

“Blow out the candle. Make a wish.” Eddie stepped up to his boyfriend and closed his eyes for a second as he made his wish. Then he opened his eyes and blew out the candle on the first try. Eddie had half expected Richie to bring him one of those prank candles that could never be put out. “What’d you wish for?”

“You ask me that every year, and every year I tell you the same thing. I can’t tell you. Then it won’t come true.”

“Has that worked for you in the past?” Eddie nodded his head triumphantly. Eddie could remember his wishes from seventh grade on and they had all come true before his next birthday. In seventh grade, he wished that they would find Georgie. In eighth grade, he wished that Richie would ask him out. In ninth grade, he wished that Richie’s parents would come around to their relationship, they had mostly done that. In tenth grade, he wished his mother would let him go to the couple different concerts that Richie had gotten them tickets for without pitching a fit. In eleventh grade, he wished for Stan to be happy again, that one took a while but it did come true. And this year, he wished that they would all be able to go to the same university.

“Alright then. Go sit on the bed, I’ll grab our stuff to eat this with.” Eddie grabbed the cupcake and sat down on his bed, crossing his legs as he did. Eddie danced slightly, which was really him just swaying back and forth, as he waited for Richie to finish digging in his bag. Eddie was just really excited. He knew how Richie got for Eddie’s birthday. Richie loved to spoil his boyfriend, especially on his birthday for some reason.

He was less excited when he finally noticed the jacket that Richie was wearing. It was made of large patches of different, bright colors. It looked like the 80s threw up all over that jacket. Eddie wasn’t overly surprised that Richie would wear something weird like that. As kids, Richie had gone through a phase where he wore a lot of Hawaiian shirts. Stan had always tried to get him to stop doing that, but it took Eddie threatening to break up with him for Richie to really stop wearing them, he still had a few and wore them occasionally but they were mostly a summer thing. Eddie should’ve just let him keep wearing them all the time because now he had to deal with these kinds of things.

When Richie turned around, he had two plastic forks, a paper plate, a couple of napkins, and one of those small bottles of milk that are found in convenience stores. Richie sat down across from Eddie and sat the plate between them. Eddie sat the cupcake down and peeled the paper away from the sides. Richie handed him a fork and let Eddie take the first bite. Eddie got a slightly larger bite and shoved it in his mouth, not really looking to see if he could tell what flavor it was. He was just really excited about cake.

Eddie put the side of his index against his lips so that he didn’t really audibly moan at how good this cupcake was. It was a red velvet cake with what tasted like homemade cream cheese icing. He finally swallowed his bite and noticed how absolutely scared Richie suddenly looked.

“Did you make this?”

“Yeah. I um- I worked really hard on it. Is it any good?”

“It’s fantastic Rich. Thank you.” Eddie very quickly took another bite before he said something really cheesy. The smile that took over Richie’s features made the cake even better. Richie smiled at everything, but it never got any less beautiful the more Eddie saw it. The two of them ate the cupcake in relative silence. The milk Richie had brought with him was still cold as they shared it.

Once Richie cleared all of the trash, Eddie scooted back so he was resting against his headboard. Richie came back over to the bed, losing his jacket at some point, turned off the lamp and stepped over Eddie’s legs, sitting next to him. Richie wrapped his arm around Eddie’s waist and handed him an earbud. For the past four years, Richie made Eddie a birthday playlist. He said it wasn’t a ‘proper’ mixtape because he didn’t have the equipment to make them, so instead, he made Spotify playlists, Eddie listened to those playlists a lot. Eddie put the earbud into his ear and settled more into Richie’s shoulder.

This was always one of Eddie’s favorite parts of his birthday. Richie always picked songs that reminded him of Eddie in general, reminded him of things that happened in the past year, or just songs that he thought Eddie would like. He also loved that Richie would drum his fingers against Eddie’s hip as the songs played. Sometimes it was because he knew how to play the song on the ukulele he had gotten a couple of years ago for his birthday, other times it was just with the beat of the song. This was always one of Eddie’s favorite hours of the year.

“You still awake?” Richie asked when the playlist was over. Eddie looked up at Richie, the moonlight illuminating his sharp features. Richie had really grown into his features as they had gotten older. Eddie had always thought he was attractive but he was much more objectively attractive now.

“Of course, I am. I’ve gathered that I’m not sleeping much while you’re here.” Richie had taken the earbud from Eddie and placed the headphones and his phone on Eddie’s bedside table.

“I mean, I’m not going to lie to you and say we are.” Eddie leaned over and caught Richie’s lips with his own again. Eddie wasn’t sure at exactly what time he had swung his leg over Richie’s so that he was straddling Richie, but he wasn’t really going to question it. Eddie pulled back slightly to catch his breath. “Happy Birthday love.”

They didn’t sleep much that night. Stan made fun of them mercilessly when they all got to work. Eddie really didn’t care, he knew it was all jokes, especially since Stan looked way worse on his birthday. Even if they hadn’t been, he had spent the night with Richie so it was really all good in the end.

**Friday, November 16th/Saturday, November 17th – Eddie and Richie’s anniversary **

“You ready for this weekend?” Richie asked sitting down at his desk. Eddie looked up from his notes and seemed very confused. “You do remember what this weekend is, right?”

“What?” Eddie sounded so tired, almost like he was running on no sleep and no coffee, which he was.

“Are you okay? You’ve been off like all morning.”

“Sorry. I got like no sleep last night and I have a test today and I really need to do well.”

“What class?”

“Brit lit.”

“I told you to take American classics with me.”

“Shut up. Now, what are you talking about this weekend for?”

“I’m going to hope that you don’t remember what tomorrow is because you’re tired and not because you’re breaking up with me or something.” Eddie stared at Richie for a moment before he suddenly remembered what day it was.

“Oh my God! No, I know it’s our anniversary tomorrow and I know we’re going away for the weekend I’ve just been stressed and I’m so tired and I promise I love you and I’m not breaking up with you and-” Eddie’s rant was interrupted when soft lips were pecked against his forehead. Eddie sighed through his nose and pouted slightly.

“You’re fine. I figured you were just tired when you didn’t talk to me in the car and didn’t come out of your house with coffee this morning.” Eddie looked around his desk and groaned. “You forgot it at home?”

“It’s sitting on the counter.” Eddie noticed the Starbucks cup in Richie’s hand. “What’s that?”

“Oh right.” Richie sat the cup on Eddie’s desk. “They opened that Starbucks down the road. I got you coffee.”

“Did you sneak out to get me coffee?” Eddie asked before taking a sip. Richie really was the best since he knew exactly what Eddie drank.

“I don’t have a second period class, remember? But yes.” 

“What period is it?”

“Third.”

“Shit, this test is next period and I still don’t know what I’m doing.”

“You’ll be fine. Do you want to just take a nap during lunch?” Eddie nodded and reminded Richie of a sad puppy. “Okay, I think the others will understand and be cool with it.”

“Do we have to stay after my test?”

“Are you asking me, to sneak out of school so that we can start our anniversary celebration early?”

“Yes. Also, so I can take a nap.”

“Okay.”

“Really?” The bell signaling third period rang as Richie nodded his head.

“Just don’t fall asleep during class,” Richie said with a wink turning to face forward. Eddie didn’t bother paying attention in class, he knew he could copy Richie’s notes later. Despite what people thought of Richie when they first met him, he was actually incredibly smart, he just had a hard time focusing sometimes.

Third period passed in a blur to Eddie, the only reason he knew he didn’t fall asleep was because he no longer had any coffee. What he did have, was a growing sense of dread that he was going to fail and a very supportive boyfriend that said he was going to be fine.

“I’ll be here right after class and we can either eat lunch here or head out early. You can decide then.”

“Okay.” Eddie felt a little better when he actually sat down at his desk for his exam. He was still exhausted but he didn’t feel like he was going to completely fail at the moment. Right before class started Eddie’s phone buzzed in his pocket. The paranoia that it was somehow his mother who had figured out he and Richie’s plans made him pull out his phone to check.

**Richie: You’re going to do great so stop freaking out! **

**Eddie: You’re not helpful. **

**Richie: Oh well. Love you!**

Eddie put his phone away as the bell rang. He was not about to get in trouble before he did something that was going to get him in even more trouble. Eddie ended up being the first person to complete the test, even though it took him most of the class period. Eddie sat in his chair and just waited for the class to end and tried his hardest not to fall asleep, even though that was all he really wanted to do.

He pulled out his book but he mostly just stared at the page. Since he wasn’t worried about the test anymore, he could actually think about this weekend. He and Richie had gotten the whole weekend off and were going out to the biggest harvest festival in Maine. It had all sorts of crafts and homemade products and Eddie was going to spend so much money and it was going to be worth it. He and Richie had been saving up their tip money for the past month. He didn’t even have to worry about his mom for the weekend since they had gotten a hotel. Well, Richie’s dad had gotten them a hotel. They had argued that it was their last anniversary in high school and their first one with both of them being adults and wanted to do something special. Wentworth didn’t need much convincing.

Not for any bad reason. He just thought that they also needed to do something nice for their anniversary since they had been dating for four years and the biggest thing they had ever done was go out to a somewhat fancy dinner. For the past few years, they usually got stuck working on their anniversary. Plus, he knew if he didn’t do this for them Richie would not stop complaining dramatically for months on end.

The bell rang a lot faster than Eddie expected it would. He also realized how goddamn tired he was. He threw all of his stuff into his bag and walked into the hallway and saw the face he had been daydreaming of on the other side of the hall.

“Did you make up your mind?” Eddie hadn’t even thought about it.

“I want to take a nap.”

“Is your mom home?”

“Yeah, so we can’t really go there until after school.”

“Do you want to go to my house and you can take a nap until we’re supposed to be out of school?”

“Does that involve cuddles?”

“Yeah.”

“Then absolutely.” They walked to the art wing and then out the door that no one used and surprisingly didn’t have an alarm. Richie had parked his car close to those doors when he went out earlier. Eddie wouldn’t make it three minutes into their drive before he was sound asleep. Richie thought it was cute. He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and figured he would answer it before he carried Eddie inside.

**Beverly: Where the hell are you two?**

**Richie: My house.**

**Beverly: Why are you there?**

**Richie: Eds was super tired so we left so that he wasn’t exhausted all weekend because I would like to enjoy my anniversary with him. **

**Beverly: And I’m going to guess you want me to make up some excuse to tell the teachers as to why the two of you aren’t here?**

**Richie: I have some weed in my locker if you do. **

**Beverly: Deal. **

Richie may not have been the strongest kid, but he was strong enough to carry his past-out boyfriend from his car and into his house. He couldn’t carry him upstairs so the couch would have to do. It would be fine. Eddie had said once that Richie’s couch was comfortable. And the context surrounding that conversation was irrelevant, or at least something parents didn’t need to know about. They disinfected the couch it was fine.

Eddie would end up sleeping for three hours. When he finally woke up completely, he saw Richie sitting on the floor in front of the couch playing Pokémon on his Switch. He had been playing Let’s Go Pikachu for a month now.

“Did you catch a Charmander yet?” Richie paused his game and looked up at his very tired boyfriend.

“Not yet. You waking up now?”

“Probably should. What time is it?” Richie moved Eddie’s arm so he could look at the watch that sat on a tiny wrist. Eddie had replaced the plastic watch he had worn as a kid for a nicer leather banded one, one that Richie had bought him for their anniversary.

“About time for us to get out of school.”

“What perfect timing.”

“You always were good at timing.” During their relationship, Eddie had proven that his internal clock when it came to Richie was not to be messed with. He would wake up exactly half an hour before he and Richie had something planned so that he could get ready. He always seemed to know exactly when Richie was going to call or text or show up seemingly unexpectedly. It always freaked Richie out a small bit but he thought it was more on the cute side than anything. Although, Richie found everything that Eddie did cute.

“You ready to listen to my mom bitch while we get my stuff?”

“I feel like I’m getting used to it.” He was.

“Ah, but this is a whole new adventure. We’ve never tried this for a whole weekend outside of Derry before.” Richie shrugged, he figured everything would be fine. He would be mostly right. Sonia, of course, tried to guilt-trip Eddie into staying. It was her normal rant of ‘what if you get hurt or ill’ and ‘do you really want to leave your mother alone like that’. Eddie’s responses were almost as practiced as her speeches.

They would leave Eddie’s house a lot faster than he thought they would get out of there. Eddie was completely sure that they would be at his house for an hour, despite the fact that all of his stuff was already packed. They made it out of there in around forty minutes.

The drive was what would take the longest, but it wasn’t too bad. At least their hour and a half drive was through some of the more wooded parts of Maine. Eddie liked watching the warm-colored trees race by them as they drove. He may have dozed off for a few minutes here and there but his long nap was doing really well for him. That and the fact that they stopped at every other Starbucks that they passed.

The hotel Wentworth had gotten them was surprisingly really nice. There were high ceilings and a balcony and Eddie didn’t really notice any of that since they got dinner, he took a shower and then fell asleep again. Richie couldn’t be too upset about it since their anniversary was the next day.

~~~

Eddie was a lot warmer with Richie’s arm draped around his shoulders as they stood at one of the tables. While he thought having the harvest festival in November was stupid even though it made sense historically, he liked this aspect of it. They had been exploring the festival for most of the day and the sun was beginning to set.

“Richie,” Eddie pulled Richie’s attention away from pastries, which was hard to do on a good day, and toward the vertical disk that was beginning to light up. “Can we ride that when it gets dark?”

“Sure. But look at these tiny cakes.”

“I’m dating a child.” The woman at the table laughed quietly at Eddie’s comment where he wanted to sound annoyed but it was really hard with how excited Richie looked about the tiny cakes, not cupcakes, tiny cakes. Eddie wasn’t really going to question the difference between those two things but he really wanted to. They would end up buying three of them. Richie would eat two of them.

At one of the other tables Eddie found a bunch of flavored coffees and bought about four of them. Richie had to cut him off before he just bought all of them. Eddie might live on coffee but if he drank all of that he would have died because that child had no self-control when it came to really good coffee.

Eddie would pull Richie over to a trio of kids that were performing songs. They had a singer, a guitarist, and a drummer who was sitting on a wooden box. Eddie had always liked music like this, it just felt so personal. That might have been why he had always loved with Richie would set up a pillow fort in his room to play Eddie whatever song he had been working on lately.

Eddie’s attention was pulled away from the street performers by something getting placed behind his ear. He looked over at Richie who was smiling softly at him. He hadn’t really noticed if Richie had been standing with him the whole time or not but he suddenly didn’t care, he was more concerned about what Richie had just done.

“What did you do?”

“Nothing. At least nothing bad.” Eddie reached up and pulled the tiny flower out from behind his ear. The purple petals were something he didn’t expect to see in mid-November. They were light but bright.

“What kind of flower is this?”

“I think the sign said they were asters. I just thought they were pretty.” Eddie tucked the flower into the breast pocket of his shirt for safekeeping and looked back up at Richie. “It’s pretty dark, did you want to go on the Ferris wheel?”

“Sure.”

They made their way over to the ride. The line wasn’t that long and surprisingly the ride was free. They talked idly as they rode the ride, they had lucked out when it came to cars. Their car was one of the ones that stopped on the very top of the wheel.

“Richie, look at this view,” Eddie said as he leaned forward slightly. Eddie made sure it wasn’t too much because then the cart would rock and he would freak out and cry. “It’s so beautiful.”

“Sure is.” Richie might have responded like he was agreeing with Eddie, although Richie wasn’t taking in the scenery. Instead, he was looking at the boy that he got to call his own. The boy that he had been falling even more in love with for the past four years. The boy that he really wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

Eddie turned around to see Richie was staring at him. Eddie scrunched his eyebrows and leaned back in his seat. He was super confused as to why Richie agreed with him even though they were very clearly looking at two different things. Eddie also recognized the look on Richie’s face. He had only seen it a few other times but it was usually what Richie looked like right before he said something really cheesy and romantic.

“What?”

“I just- I love you so much.”

“I love you too.”

“But it’s not just that. I don’t think I could love anyone else. Like ever. And I don’t want to.”

“Are you going to ask me what I think you’re going to ask me?” Eddie didn’t know if he was scared about the idea or excited about it. He would figure it out in a second if that’s where it was going.

“I mean yes, but like not right now. I just want you to know it’s coming.”

“What if I ask you first?”

“I’ll say yes.” Eddie smiled and Richie was pretty sure he was going to go blind if he looked at that smile for too long. It was the smile Eddie got when he was really excited about something. It was the smile that brought out Eddie’s dimples. It was the smile that sometimes showed the tip of his tongue if it was really bad.

Richie leaned over and kissed Eddie’s cheek, aiming for the dimple that he could see. Eddie didn’t let Richie’s face get too far away before he grabbed it so they could kiss properly. Just like most times, they made out somewhere, they completely ignored their surroundings, they were far too wrapped up in each other. They didn’t realize they had been moving until the ride suddenly stopped again. It was the sudden jerking that made them actually separate.

“Happy anniversary,” Richie whispered, they may have separated but they were still close, close enough for Richie to see the small dark specks in Eddie’s normally bright eyes.

“I love you.” Richie didn’t need to say it back to Eddie, they both really didn’t need to say it, they both already knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Georgie's Birthday  
I was really excited to include Georgie in this, and I still am. There is a very small Stephen King reference in this and if you know what it’s from, my mom will be very proud.
> 
> Halloween  
I got the costumes from Xlandloud on Tumblr, except for Georgie’s. For his, I just thought about what costume I would wear if I was going to a party and only had one arm.
> 
> Eddie's Birthday  
Is it really a longer Reddie fanfic if Richie doesn't climb through Eddie's window? I feel like it isn't. And if it is, it certainly isn't written by me. 
> 
> Reddie's Anniversary  
You have no idea how long it took me to decide what the hell I wanted them to do for their anniversary. This may or may not be based on something my parents would do. This is also the only one that will have any kind of time jump in it but that's because it's the only one that has an extra day attached to it with like a break in between, you'll see what I mean. I just couldn't shrink it down to one day to save my life.


	3. Winter

**Tuesday, December 25th \- Christmas **

Christmas was one of the few holidays that the Losers didn’t spend almost all of together. They would still hang out; it just wouldn’t be until later in the day. Mornings were for family. Well for the most part.

Stan was going to be spending most of Christmas (all of Christmas) with the Denbroughs. Bill was ecstatic about this. Georgie was super excited about it. And their parents didn’t care. They liked Stan, a lot. They thought he was a good kid that was getting Bill on track.

Stan had never experienced Christmas before. At least not like everyone else. His Christmas consisted of ordering Chinese food with his parents, hanging out with his friends for a few hours, and then going to bed feeling a little left out. He didn’t like to think about his past Christmases, for varying reasons. But this Christmas should be good, he gets to spend it with his boyfriend and his family and then all of their friends.

Stan had shown up at their house a little after breakfast, mostly because he decided to sleep in. When he told Bill that, he laughed since it was not a very Stan thing to do. Stan would figure out all of the strange Denbrough Christmas traditions.

It started when Stan got there, he apparently needed to change into pajama pants because regular pants were not allowed. They would watch some of the classic Claymation Christmas movies while they drank hot cocoa. And then there was lunch, which was pretty late as it was. Apparently, the Denbrough’s have not had a ‘traditional’ Christmas dinner in years but had decided to have that this year in honor of it being Stan’s first Christmas. Last year it had been Italian. After lunch they exchanged family gifts, Stan had been surprised to receive gifts from Bill’s parents. He had figured he would get one from Georgie and Bill said he would give Stan his gift before they went to Richie’s house.

After gifts, the kids were allowed to go to their rooms since Bill and Stan were going out tonight and Georgie didn’t know how to sleep like a normal person. Stan was piled up on Bill’s bed with his legs drawn up to his chest as he scrolled through his phone.

“Stan,” Stan looked up from his phone to Bill. “I have s-something for you.” Stan just looked at the small box that Bill handed to him. He let his legs fall slightly so he was sitting his legs crossed in front of him.

Stan opened the box to see a small silver necklace. It would have seemed like an ordinary silver necklace with a round pendant had it not been for the drawing on the pendant. It was a doodle of a tiny chickadee, the same one that Bill had drawn for Stan in middle school as a thank you.

“I found the doodle in your room one day. It took me m-months to find someone that would help me put it on there. Finally found s-someone on Etsy that would do it for not all my t-tip money for a month.” Stan ran his thumb over the engraving on the front. “Did you look on the back?” Stan turned the small circle around to see the words written permanently on the back.

“For my little birdie,” Stan’s voice was barely above a whisper. Stan smiled to himself before he looked back up at Bill. “Help me put this on?” Bill nodded and held out his hand. Stan dropped the necklace into Bill’s hand and turned around. Bill tried not to let his hands shake as he clasped the back.

“All done.” Stan leaned back into Bill’s chest. He pulled the pendant out in front of him to look at it. He didn’t need to look at the doodle, he had spent many nights staring at it before he started dating Bill.

“Thank you. I love it.” Bill wrapped his arms around Stan and sat his chin on the shoulder of the boy that he was way too in love with. Not that he cared. Stan was everything he wanted, so why shouldn’t he be in love with him? Why shouldn’t he do everything he could to make sure that Stan knew how much he cared and do everything he could to get Stan to stay. Not that Stan really needed any kind of incentive to stay.

“You do?” He had been concerned that Stan would like it but would say that it was something that he wouldn’t wear that often, although Bill was starting to believe this was something Stan would never be taking off. Stan’s next statement pretty much made that a concrete idea to Bill.

“Of course. Almost as much as I love you.”

“Wait, wh-what did you say?” Bill lifted his head off Stan’s shoulder to look at his face, he wasn’t quite expecting Stan’s eyes to meet his.

“I said I love you.” Bill had expected Stan to sound scared at the thought, but he didn’t. Stan had been thinking over the fact for months now. He knew he loved Bill a long time ago, it was just he didn’t know the right time to say it. Right now had seemed like the perfect time.

“You do?”

“Yeah. Thought that was obvious.”

“There’s a d-difference between hearing you say it and just knowing it.” Stan quirked an eyebrow at Bill, clearly asking for some kind of explanation. “Hearing made my h-h-heart skip.”

“So, I shouldn’t say it again?”

“I want to hear it all the t-t-time.”

“That sounds bad for your health.”

“Nah.” Bill leaned over and kissed his cheek, Stan would call it aggressively but Bill would call it passionately. Stan pushed Bill’s head away from him, mostly in a playful way.

“Get away from me, you fucking sap.” Bill didn’t do that, instead, he tucked his head into the crook of Stan’s neck, refusing to leave that spot until they had to leave for their party.

They had all gone over to Richie’s house for their Losers Christmas. Bill had offered his house but Richie said it would be easier since he was the only kid that lived in the house, plus his basement was finished and they had just put a giant TV down there so it was way more fun.

Bev was the one that suggested a secret Santa. It had been a pain in the ass to convince the guys that this was a good idea but they eventually conceded when she pointed out that it was either one big gift or six gifts that would have to be pretty cheap. She had set the max price at $40 but she knew all of them were going to go over since everyone would get small/homemade gifts to put in stockings.

They all sat in a circle with their gift in front of them. All of the labels had to be typed out since all of them had very distinct handwriting that the others would recognize. Some of the gifts were super sweet and very obviously had a lot of thought put into it. Some of them were very obviously joke gifts with a real gift underneath. So basically, it was a whole lot of Losers Club fuckery.

Stan pulled his bag towards him; he already had a feeling that Richie had a hand in this gift. He knew it wasn’t from Richie since Richie had gotten Ben, but he had helped, Stan felt this fact in his soul. Stan removed the first layer of tissue paper and sighed. He pulled out the pajama pants and held them up to look at the pattern. He then promptly deadpan stared at Richie, who was trying so hard not to laugh.

“Do you even like superheroes?” Mike asked at the Robin patterned sleep pants.

“No. But I did tell Richie once when he and I got drunk in his room that if I had to like a superhero it would be Robin.” Stan did mention to Richie in that conversation that it was almost entirely because he thought Robin was really hot and surprisingly not because of the bird thing.

“And then I blew your mind by telling you there were four of them.”

“There are four Robins?” Bev asked.

“There’s technically more,” Richie corrected. “But I would never help your secret Santa buy those for you and make sure they are the right size.” Stan rolled his eyes and set the pants down, deciding that he might as well see what else was in the bag.

Stan pulled something ceramic wrapped in tissue paper out of the bag. Stan was fairly certain he knew what it was, and he was right. It was a super-sized mug that had what looked like hand-painted birds on it. Stan looked up at who he knew his Secret Santa was.

“Thanks, Eddie.”

“You’re welcome,” Eddie’s voice had gotten a little bubblier as the night had gone on, it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Richie’s parents had given them some booze and that they agreed to let Eddie spend the night. Maggie didn’t like Sonia, so she was always down to help Eddie escape that hell house almost entirely to spite his mother.

“How d-did you know it was him?”

“He and I are the only two that drink this much coffee in one sitting. Also, I’ve seen him draw these birds before.” Eddie had learned to draw them for Stan, although Richie was the only one of their friends that knew that. Eddie had learned to doodle something for all of their friends.

Stan put both of his gifts into his bag and leaned back into Bill’s side. The rest of the gifts were opened, they all watched some trashy Hallmark Christmas movies and then all went back home. Stan went back to the Denbrough house where Bill’s mom had been waiting for them. She listened to Stan tell her how the party was. Stan couldn’t seem to wipe the smile off of his face, even as he was curled into Bill’s chest listened to the sleeping breaths underneath him. He decided that he was pretty sure he could get used to how nice he felt this Christmas. He knew it wasn’t all because of Bill and his family, but they were certainly helping.

**Friday, January 4th \- Bill’s Birthday **

Bill was sleeping so soundly, despite his bed being a lot emptier than he would have liked it. It was just past seven-thirty in the morning. Everything was perfect. Well, not for Bill but for Georgie to scare the shit out of him by aggressively blowing one of the extra New Year’s horns that they had, which is exactly what he did. And it worked better than Georgie could have ever predicted it would.

Bill shrieked and rolled off the bed. It was probably a good thing that Stan wasn’t there because he would have run him over. Then again, Georgie probably wouldn’t have done this if Stan was here, or he would’ve at least told Stan he was going to do it. Bill looked up and at the intruder on the other side of the bed.

“You are the f-f-fucking w-worst.”

“You know you love me.”

“Debatable.”

“Either way, it’s your birthday and I want to hang out before you go hang out with your friends.” Georgie’s voice slowly dropped as he spoke, he probably thought it was mildly embarrassing to be saying all of that but he meant it.

“Okay. L-let me get ready and we c-can go out to br-breakfast.” Georgie smiled and went back to his own room. Bill was still sitting on the ground and didn’t really want to get up. He was probably just a little upset that Stan wasn’t there and he wasn’t going to see him at all today. He refused to not at least hear from Stan on his birthday.

He grabbed his phone and noticed that he had two unread text messages. Both of them were his friends saying happy birthday to him. Mike had sent his at exactly midnight and Eddie sent his at 12:01. Most of them knew not to try to beat Mike at wishing someone a happy birthday, Richie with Eddie was the only exception. Bill thanked his friends and then opened his conversation with Stan.

**Bill: You awake?**

**Stan: Partially **

Bill didn’t really read Stan’s answer before he hit the call button. Stan responded so he was awake, at least that’s how Bill was treating it.

“Hello?” Bill was going to pretend that Stan’s half-asleep voice wasn’t one of his favorite sounds, it totally was. Stan, of course, knew this. He just didn’t need to know how bad it affected him.

“Good m-m-morning.”

“Why are you calling me at … 7:42 in the morning?” There was a pause since Stan had to actually look at his phone time to know how early it was.

“G-Georgie woke me up.”

“So, you decided to share the misery?”

“Yeah.” Stan chuckled softly on the other end of the line.

“You got plans for the day?”

“M-miss you like crazy.” Bill was pretty sure he heard Stan get out of bed at that point as well.

“Besides that.”

“I’m g-going to breakfast with Georgie and then hanging out at M-Mike’s place.”

“Sounds like a fun time, sad I have to miss it.” Bill heard something beep in the background and he was going to assume it was the coffee machine.

“When are you coming back?” Bill tried not to sound sad, it didn’t fool Stan though.

“Late tomorrow night.”

“Do you want to come over on Sunday?”

“I can see what I can do.” Bill groaned which caused Stan to laugh. “You’re so pathetic.”

“You picked me.”

“Remind me why I did that again?”

“Cause I’m cute.”

“Can’t argue with that one.”

“I should p-p-probably get ready. G-Georgie will be back up soon.”

“Alright. Have fun. I’ll text you later.”

“Love you.”

“Love you too.” Bill sat in the same spot for a moment after had and Stan hung up. He couldn’t help but smile to himself despite the fact that he was still sad about Stan’s absence. Hearing Stan say that he loves him was still such a new experience for him. It still made his heart beat a little faster for a moment. Maybe he should get that checked out.

Breakfast with his brother ended up almost going into brunch since they stayed at the diner for so long. It wasn’t as nice as the place he worked but Bill still enjoyed the small-town 50s vibe that this diner had. He had taken Stan here a few times but it was usually in the middle of the night after they had been out for most of the day. What they were doing was no one’s business.

He ended up just dropping his brother off at home and then heading over to Mike’s despite his mother’s protests. Apparently, she wanted his truck for something but he countered with that he wasn’t going to make anyone drive all the way back out here just to turn back since they were already waiting on him. He just wanted to be alone with his sadness for a moment. She didn’t have any other arguments and let him leave.

“Guys, I miss Stan,” Bill said as he stared at the ceiling on Mike’s barn, which he had been doing since he got there almost an hour ago. They had all gotten the day off since Pennywise went out of town to visit family. Pennywise was a strange man and didn’t really understand how normal holiday vacations worked but they weren’t going to complain about that. At least not when Bill could complain about Stan not being there.

“You make it sound he’s dead and not just on vacation,” Richie commented flicking ash from his ever-dying cigarette.

“Who goes on vacation after new years?” Mike asked. He had always been confused by the timing of this trip. He knew Pennywise did weird things but he thought Stan’s family was much more normal than that.

“The Uris family. They’ve done this every year for the past like ten years. Pops doesn’t like going to places when there’ll be a lot of people there but he also hates going anywhere in the summer. So, they generally go on this long weekend, in the middle of the week, kind of trip at the end of Christmas break.”

“Did you just call Stan’s dad Pops?” Ben asked.

“Yeah, I don’t know his name and I don’t like him enough to ask.” None of them had to ask why Richie and Stan’s dad didn’t get along. Stan’s father was one of those people who refused to hide his opinions, and he had very low opinions when it came to Richie. He liked Richie’s parents, just not their son. “He also hates it so it fuels me to do it more.”

“You know, this explanation d-doesn’t help me miss him any less.”

“At least the work on your stutter is getting better,” Ben commented. He hated seeing his friends sad, especially when he thought there was nothing he could do about it.

“I guess. It st-still bugs me sometimes. Just n-not as frequent anymore. It was god awful this morning.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” a voice that Bill was not expected responded. He pushed himself up and turned to look at the figure standing in the doorway. Bill had been so busy complaining and being a sad child that he didn’t notice the door open. Had he looked earlier he would’ve noticed Stan wearing the flannel jacket that Bill was sure he had lost a week ago.

“Did you steal my fucking jacket?”

“You were just complaining that you missed me and that’s the first thing you say to me?”

“Give the boy a break Stanny, he’s probably in shock.” Richie was right, he was.

“You gonna come sit with us or are you just going to stand in the doorway?” Eddie asked. Stan finally shut the door and walked over to join them. Bill didn’t stop staring at Stan the whole time. Stan looked at Bill once he was completely sitting. Bill took Stan’s hand, mostly so he could convince himself that Stan was real.

“How was your trip?” Bev asked.

“Awful as ever. That trip gets no better no matter how many years we go. I guess it would be different if I liked skiing or anything else they do at that resort.” Stan didn’t realize that he had started to run his thumb across Bill’s knuckles, but Bill noticed.

They all sat there for a few more hours, mostly just enjoying each other’s company. They might see each other all the time but it still somehow felt like it was never enough time. There was always something to tell the others or some ridiculous questions that needed asked or some adventure that needed planned or something that needed to be complained about.

“How did you get here?” Eddie asked Stan as they walked outside to head home. He figured there would be an extra car sitting out there but it was just the three cars that had been there to begin with.

“Bill’s mom dropped me off. I was just going to drive your truck but you apparently drove yourself.”

“Oh my God, that explains so much. W-Wait, my mom knew you were coming?”

“Yeah. She and I planned this when I came over for Christmas.”

“Rude.” Stan leaned over and kissed Bill’s cheek as an apology. It seemed to work pretty well. They all got into their separate cars and waved bye as they pulled away from Mike’s place. Bill and Stan had made it about three minutes down the road when Bill had made a decision. He did not want to go home right now and he had a full tank of gas.

“We’re not gonna g-go to my house.”

“Where are we going then?” Stan was going to pretend to sound concerned but he also kind of liked the idea of getting to spend some actual alone time with his boyfriend for his birthday. The boyfriend he was concerned that he wasn’t going to get to see for his birthday until a few weeks ago. God, he loved Bill’s mom, this had been her idea.

“We are going out to the b-barrens.”

“And what are we going to do out there?”

“Have fun.”

“By have fun do you mean smoke the weed you have in the glove box?”

“You’re not s-supposed to know about that.”

“Well, I do.”

Bill would end up letting Stan smoke most of it since watching his boyfriend unravel into a fit of giggles with a great birthday gift in his mind. Some of the only actual hits that Bill would take was by shotgunning which really would just turn into mildly making out for a minute or so. Stan ended up leaning into Bill’s shoulder once they were done with those adventures.

“Did you really think I wasn’t going to be here for your birthday?” Stan asked after a few moments of silence.

“Well, you were on vacation so yeah I didn’t think you were going to be here.”

“I told my dad I had to work this weekend so I had to drive separately and come back today.”

“But we don’t work this weekend,” Bill tilted his head so that he could look at Stan, who looked back up at his as he responded.

“I know that. They don’t know that. And if they find out I’m just going to say that he announced it after we left and that I didn’t want to waste gas to go back out.”

“You for real lied to your parents and came back early for me?” Stan nodded and made a small noise of agreement. Bill leaned over and kissed him, although it was a little awkward given their position. “You’re the best and I love you.”

“I learned from the best.” Stan moved slightly so he wasn’t craning his neck awkwardly to look at Bill.

“So, when did you steal my jacket?”

“The last time I stayed over. You gave it to me after a nightmare because I was cold and I just never gave it back.” Bill remembered that night. It wasn’t the worst nightmare he had ever helped Stan through but it certainly wasn’t the easiest. He never asks Stan what happens in his nightmares and it’s not because he doesn’t want to know, he just doesn’t want to make Stan relive those more than he already does.

“You look good in it, better than I do.”

“Are you saying I can keep it?”

“Were you going to give it back?”

“No.” Stan looked up at Bill when he started laughing. “Are you really shocked?”

“I’d be shocked if you were going to give it back.” Stan moved so he was facing Bill and had his legs tucked underneath him on the truck bench seat. Bill recognized the look on Stan’s face.

“Maybe that’ll be your birthday gift.”

“I can think of something better.”

“Oh, can you now?” Bill nodded and started leaning in to close the space between him and Stan. “Are you saying my presence isn’t a good gift?”

“It is. I just want to take the time to enjoy it.” Stan glanced over at the gas gauge. He saw that there was still over half a tank of gas. That was plenty of time.

**Wednesday, February 13th \- Bev’s Birthday **

“Behold peasants, your birthday queen has arrived,” Bev mock announced as she walked up to their lunch table.

“We are not worthy of thee,” Richie answered in a British accent, it had gotten better over the years but he threw all that progress out the window in order to be funny.

“You’re right, you’re not,” she responded as she sat down. This was the first time she had seen some of them all day. She had homeroom with Mike, rode to school with Ben, and had second and third periods with Bill but she hadn’t seen the other three all day, which annoyed the hell out of her.

“How was your morning?” Eddie asked.

“I got out of a pop quiz today so it’s going great.”

“How the hell did you pull that one off?” Richie asked. He had tried everything to get out of quizzes that he may or may not have studied for.

“Apparently, when you have a birthday the day before Valentine’s Day people feel bad for you. I don’t get it but I’m not going to question it.”

They ate in relative peace for a bit after that. Idle chit-chat floated around the table, recounting other things that happened to them in class. Like when Richie got himself and Eddie kicked out of their calculus class because he was relentlessly flirting with Eddie. Bill added that the entire class heard Eddie yell at Richie as they made their way down the hall. Eddie shrugged at that, it had mostly been for show since they didn’t go to the principal’s office and instead went and made out in the bathroom.

“Are we still going out to dinner tonight?” Mike asked. They had planned on doing something as a group for Bev’s birthday since they didn’t have to work tonight.

“Yes, Mike. I would never cancel plans with my boys and you should know this by now.” She took a quick sip of her drink before the question that had popped in her head last night resurfaced. “Do you guys think you could help me move before dinner since we have to wait for Stan to get done with practice?”

“You’re moving?” Ben seemed the most surprised by this.

“Yeah.”

“To where?” Stan asked, he had a feeling he knew where this was going but was not going to jump straight to that conclusion, although he would’ve been right.

“Ben’s house,” she answered pointing to her boyfriend.

“Wait, your aunt said yes?” Bev nodded to Ben’s question.

“Her response was ‘You’ve basically lived there since you were sixteen, what difference does it make now?’ and then just asked that I visited her occasionally.” What she didn’t mention was that her aunt had responded through a laugh and said she was shocked Bev asked if she was cool with it instead of just telling her what she was doing.

“So, you’re officially moving in with Ben?” Eddie asked. He didn’t want to admit that he was a little jealous of the fact that those two got to live together and he and Richie didn’t, despite the fact that they had been dating for pretty much the same amount of time. He was pretty sure his mother and her smothering were going to be the death of him.

“Yeah. I mean the school and government and whatnot are still going to think that I live with my aunt but that’s just because it’s easier.”

“I’m happy for you two.”

“Thanks, Mikey. So, you’ll definitely help me move all my shit?” The boys all chuckled and agreed, minus Stan since he would be at practice. “Great.”

The bell forced them to mostly go their separate ways, at least for a few more hours. Bill told Stan that he would be back after practice to pick him up since Bev was probably going to need both his and Mike’s trucks to pack all her stuff. She had been talking to Jean for months about moving in and taking over the spare room. Bill did not appreciate having to lug dress forms up and downstairs for two hours.

“Hey guys, do you think I could have a moment with Bev? Alone?” Ben asked seemingly out of nowhere.

“Sure. Do you want us to start working on unpacking your workspace?” Eddie asked Bev.

“That would be great.” Richie had helped her set up the last space so he probably remembered how it was set up. The other boys all left the room, leaving Ben standing next to the closet and Bev sitting on the bed going through her clothes. “So, what did you want to be alone for?”

“I wanted to give you your birthday gift.”

“Okay.” Ben turned around and grabbed a box off the top shelf of the closet. It had probably been up there for weeks but it was such a plain-looking box that Bev hadn’t noticed it. Ben opened the box and pulled something out of it while his back was still turned to her. When he did turn around, he handed the box to her.

Bev opened the box and saw a box of black petalled flowers. She knew exactly what flowers these were since she had been talking about them for months and how cool she thought they looked.

“Are these what I think they are?”

“If you think they’re the black Christmas roses that you haven’t stopped talking about for like three months then you’re right.”

“Don’t make it sound like you also don’t get weirdly obsessed with things from time to time.” Ben smiled and kissed her cheek. “How did you get these?”

“They’re preserved ones so they won’t die. I got them from this online shop. The lady that ran the place was super sweet and ended up giving me a really cool deal.”

“What kind of deal?” Ben was not one to go cheap when it came to Bev. He always felt bad if he didn’t get her something really nice and for some reason, he hated to spend coupons or use sales for gifts. Ben was weird, she had just learned to accept it, and love him a little more for it.

“Close your eyes.” She did and almost jumped when she felt him get closer to her, it was mostly a reflex. She did get slightly less confused when she felt a necklace slip over her head and fall against her chest. “Okay.”

Bev opened her eyes and looked down. The flower was small but seemed like it was trimmed with real gold, it probably was knowing Ben. Despite the gold detailing, it matched the flowers that were still sitting in the box.

“So, you bought the necklace and got the actual flowers for free?”

“Yeah.”

“Thought you didn’t do sales.”

“I didn’t get a choice. She yelled at me over the phone when I told her I would pay for the flowers. She’s scary but very nice.”

“Thank you. I love it.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. They both knew that there were other people in the house so they couldn’t get too crazy. By the time they joined the others in the workroom, Bill had already left to go pick up Stan. She was excited to spend the rest of her birthday with all the boys she loved, especially the one she loved the most.

**Thursday, February 14th \- Valentine’s Day**

None of the couples were able to celebrate, not since the restaurant was packed and there were still reservations that were supposed to be coming in. Valentine’s Day was one of the only days that the restaurant was reservations only, no reservation no food. Bev enjoyed telling annoying high school students that when they coped an attitude with her. The good part, was that all of them were going to make a lot of tip money that night, since Bev and Stan got part of the tips.

All the front staff heard was how amazing the specialty menu was. Since they were going to be crazy busy all day, Mike and Ben created a small menu that were all new items. Pennywise had given them free rein on the food decisions. Even though he had worked in restaurants for his entire life, Pennywise trusted the two high school seniors with the food significantly more than he trusted the other chefs he had, who also had a lot more restaurant experience.

Bev had just gotten back to her station when she saw another car pull up. She sighed and got ready to be her fake, cheery self. She was just so tired. She was pretty sure this Valentine’s Day had been worse than the last two that she worked here. At least most of the people had been polite this year.

“Hello and happy Valentine’s Day. What’s your reservation under?” Beverly asked the lovely elderly couple that had come in. They seemed very familiar but she suddenly couldn’t remember where she knew them from. But she was also running on steam and coffee and maybe a shot or two of whiskey but so was most of the staff.

“Hanlon,” the man answered. Bev groaned slightly as she lied her head on her podium. Mike’s grandparents chuckled slightly.

“I am so sorry that I didn’t recognize you. It has been crazy in here all night and we are nowhere close to closing time.” The first set of reservations started at four, and it was only six.

“It’s okay sweetheart.” Mike’s grandma really was the sweetest woman to exist.

“We should’ve known how busy it was going to be when we got the order a month ago.” Mike’s grandparents supplied some of the meat and produce for the restaurant. It helped that the chef was their grandson.

“Maybe it’ll be a little better now that you guys are here.” They both looked very confused as Bev grabbed two menus for them and crossed their name off the list. “We’re all running a little ragged at the moment, maybe some familiar faces that aren’t terrible high school students will be a nice change of pace. I’ll take you to your table now.”

The two followed her to a very nice table in one of the quieter parts of the restaurant, it was also their table. Bev knew she was double seating Eddie, which she felt bad about, but he would be happy that he got this table.

“Who’s our waiter, dear?” Grandma Hanlon asked. She didn’t really care who it was, she was just curious.

“Eddie. I’ll go find him and let him know you guys are here.” Bev walked off to find Eddie. He was at the waiter’s station catching a very quick breather before he went back to serving. “Eddie.” He looked up when he heard his name.

“Oh God, did I miss something?”

“What? No. I just came over to tell you that I sat table seventeen and they are a very important table.”

“Who’s there? The mayor?” he asked in a joking manner.

“Way more important than that.”

“Who’s more important than that?”

“Go and find out.” She walked back over to her station, figuring that she had more people that needed seated, the second wave had started and no one was excited. Eddie was confused but decided he needed to just go see who this ‘important table’ was. As soon as he saw who was at the table, he beamed a little more naturally than his normal waiter persona did.

“Hey guys, I didn’t think I was going to see you tonight.”

“She insisted that we come out for Valentine’s Day and this was the only good restaurant in a hundred-mile radius.”

“Are you all working tonight?” Eddie nodded at her question. “So, none of you got to celebrate?” Eddie shook his head.

“It doesn’t bother me and Richie too much, he’ll just come over after work or this weekend. I don’t think Stan and Bill will do anything, Stan’s not really a romance person. Ben and Bev don’t bother since their anniversary is later this month and her birthday was yesterday. And Mike is purposefully single at the moment.”

“Our grandson is so strange,” Mike’s grandpa commented.

“He gets it from your side,” she responded.

“I’ll give you two a moment to look at the menu and I will be back to take your orders.” Eddie walked off once they both seemed to agree. He knew that he was supposed to take drink orders but anyone that knew the elderly Hanlon couple knew that they only drank water or sweet tea with dinner but only sweet teas from specific places, and the restaurant was not one of those.

Eddie made his way back to the kitchen, figuring he should tell Mike that his grandparents were there. He probably wouldn’t go out and see them but he sure as hell would do something special for the two of them.

“Hey Mike,” Eddie said once he saw that Mike wasn’t currently trying to finish two tables.

“Yes?”

“Your grandparents are here.”

“Are they really?”

“Table seventeen.”

“Wait, Grandma is here?” Stan asked as he walked past Eddie.

“How did you know?” Eddie asked, Stan had been cleaning tables on the other side of the restaurant.

“Seventeen is the table they always sit at.” Mike sighed, he wanted to pretend he was concerned as to why Stan knew so much about his grandparents but he had woken up far too many mornings after their get-togethers to find Stan in the kitchen drinking coffee with his grandmother, and she loved to talk to people. She also weirdly loved Stan more than his other friends. She was pretty perceptive though, so maybe she knew something was up with Stan.

“Do I need to take their order or are you going to decide what they’re eating for them?” Eddie asked, Mike usually decided what his family was going to eat when they came.

“I’ll figure it out for them. Just make a note and put it in the line of orders.” Mike had already rejoined Ben in making the next two orders. Since most people were here in groups of two, they had gotten pretty good at working on two to three orders at a time. Were they supposed to do that? No. Did they do it to get food out slightly faster? Yes.

Mike’s grandparents weren’t at all surprised that he was going to be deciding what they ate. They had been expecting it. Mike was always weird about them getting things that he had technically stolen the recipe of from his grandmother, he didn’t want to get roasted when he got home.

At one point or another, all of the staff had talked to the Hanlons, including Pennywise. He kept it away from the business, which was surprising for him. Instead he just had a pleasant conversation with them about Mike and the fact that his work ethic clearly came from his grandmother.

Stan talked to them for longer than he should have about the fact that Mike’s grandfather did not know what coffee was good and what coffee was bad since he drank it with so much sugar and cream that it no longer tasted like coffee. Bill had walked over during that conversation at some point and tried so hard to not apologize for his boyfriend, these people were like Stan’s second parents so they were used to it.

Richie came over and talked to them about how much he wanted, no needed, to get drunk in their barn after the night he had, after the night they all had. Apparently, all three waiters had to deal with one table because they bitched about everything and if one small thing was wrong, they demanded a new waiter. Stan and Bev got their turns too. Pennywise had eventually asked them to not come back, he was really tired of people treating his staff like garbage because they were young.

Ben and Mike couldn’t make it out until a slight lull in the orders and it was only for a few minutes to say hello and ask what they thought of the food.

The rest of the night was long, as expected, although seeing his grandparents was a slight pick-me-up for all of them. They were also excited when grandpa said he was totally fine with all of them coming over for the weekend since Pennywise had given them Friday and Saturday off since this was the busiest night of the year. And they really, _really_ needed that weekend off after tonight.

**Sunday, February 24th \- Ben and Bev’s anniversary **

She stretched her arms up over her head as she sat up. She had been able to kind of drift in and out after Ben got up but she hadn’t been able to go back to sleep. That had been almost two hours ago. Part of that time had been texting some of her friends. Eddie was complaining about Richie twisting his ankle so they couldn’t go out on some date that he had been planning. Bev told him to just order pizza, stay in, and fuck like a normal young adult couple. Bill was apologizing for some weird drunk texts he sent her last night, those were apparently meant for Stan as a way to embarrass him in front of his teammates. She asked if they worked to embarrass him and Bill said no, but they did work to get Stan to flirt with him in front of him teammates so you win some you lose some. She decided not to question it after that. Mike told her all the weird things Bill and Stan did at that party.

After laughing at Mike’s texts for like five minutes, she decided she might as well get up and get ready for the day, it was almost noon. She saw a piece of paper sitting on the dresser her clothes were in. She smirked at the writing on the paper, already liking where today was going. “Don’t bother putting real pants on, we aren’t going anywhere,” was written in Ben’s neat handwriting. She put on a clean pair of leggings and one of Ben’s sweatshirts and made her way downstairs.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she saw what Ben had been working on for a few hours. He had turned the couch and some of the chairs around to create a blanket cave. She couldn’t see it yet but Ben had also set up some battery-powered fairy lights to give the whole thing a very warm feeling.

“Hello darling,” Bev said leaning into the fort.

“You’re up early,” Ben sounded really disappointed by that.

“I heard the commotion down here. I’ve been awake for hours.”

“I tried to be quiet.” Ben looked so crestfallen about that, he thought he had been so quiet while setting this up.

“I know and you were. You just know how I am.” She always woke up when he got out of bed. Partially because he took a lot of the warmth with him. It was why they only needed one alarm clock.

“Do you at least like it?”

“I love it. Very different from last year.” Last year, Bev had planned a little weekend trip where they went out to Baltimore. They spent a lot of time at Edgar Allen Poe’s house. Not that she was opposed to that. “So, what all do you have that didn’t require me to put pants on?”

“You mean besides this blanket fort that I had Jean help me with before she left for the day?” Bev nodded, not shocked that he had his aunt help him put this together. “I made food, we can get wine drunk, and watch whatever movies you want.”

“You have to agree with the movies too.”

“Back and forth picks?”

“Deal.” That would probably end up being whatever Bev picked, only because Ben was like that. She would make sure to throw in some movies that were more of Ben’s style, not that she didn’t like those movies too.

This anniversary was so low-key for them, but that was kind of their pattern. One year they would do something big and the next they would do something that could basically be considered a regular date and then it would repeat. Part of it depended on what day their anniversary fell on.

“What kind of wine do you want?” Ben asked as he walked to the kitchen.

“What did you make for our first meal?” Bev asked making herself comfortable in the pile of pillows Ben had set up.

“Soup. Specifically, Italian wedding.”

“My favorite food.” She really did love soup and didn’t really know why. She tried to think about what wines they had in the wine fridge. “Do we still have the berry Moscato?”

“Should. You want that?” Bev agreed and started flipping through streaming services to find something to watch. She had finally landed on a cheesy Syfy movie when Ben rejoined her in the fort, soup bowls balanced on a tray in one hand and two mugs of wine in the other. “Thank you, kind sir.”

“You’re welcome, pretty lady.”

“Shut up.” She took a sip from her Pooh Bear mug and mock glared at Ben’s smirk. It was a good thing that she loved him and that he knew how to make really good vegetarian soup.

They had both agreed to turn their phones off, mostly so they didn’t need to deal with their friends complaining about the alternates since they had gotten the day off, as much fun as that was. Bev wanted to just enjoy the day with her boyfriend and not worry about making her friends feel better about her decisions. Not that they ever purposefully made her feel bad for anything, sometimes things happened.

They had made it through two movies before Ben asked if they were ready for the next meal, which Ben technically still had to cook. Bev joined him in the kitchen as he worked, her claiming a spot on the counter to watch as he made homemade pasta.

Bev thought about how domestic this all felt to her, it was always how she had dreamed about being with someone. The two of them just existing in the same space, not needing to say anything, just enjoying the company. She could see herself doing this forever, she was pretty sure Ben could too.

“What do you think our future house will look like?” Bev asked. She didn’t know where the question came from, but she was certainly interested in what he was going to say.

“What do you mean?”

“Like, when we eventually get our own place. What do you think it will be like?”

“I think it’ll be small, but like the perfect size for us. I think the kitchen will be larger than most of the other rooms in the house,” Bev giggled slightly as he continued, “I think you’ll have decorated each room to have a different theme but it will somehow all go together. I think our friends will be there all the time because they know I’ll cook. I think we’ll have a dog or two running around.”

“What kind of dog?”

“Something big that will lie between us at night.” He looked up at her, “Something that makes you feel safe.”

“I feel safe with you no matter what.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you’re not getting rid of me any time soon.” He stepped in front of her and got closer as long arms wrapped around his shoulders.

“You’re stuck with me forever.”

“Aren’t I the luckiest guy.” She pulled him closer and kissed him. She was never going to get over how good it felt to kiss him. How good it felt to know that someone cared about her the way he did or that someone would always be there for her and looking out for her well-being.

She also decided that she didn’t care where they lived in the future. As long as they were together, it didn’t matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I'm very late for the Christmas part of this chapter, but is anyone really shocked? I did get this up for Valentine's day, not that that's a holiday I particularly celebrate.


	4. Spring

**Thursday, March 7th \- Richie’s Birthday **

Richie had been out of it all day. By the time they got to lunch, they had all noticed. They had also noticed that they were missing someone.

“Where’s Eddie?” Ben asked. Richie looked up from where he had been picking at his sandwich.

“He’s sick.”

“Oh man, that sucks. Didn’t you two have plans for your birthday?” Bill asked.

“I mean kind of. He had actually convinced Sonia to let him spend the night at my place tonight so he was going to come over after work.”

“How bad is it?” Ben asked.

“Bad enough for him to not be here and to not really want me to come over after work. He called me after he threw up the first time and was sobbing. He just kept apologizing. That was also at three this morning.”

“Poor kid. He was so excited about spending the night with you tonight, he was telling me about his plans the other day.”

“How bad am I missing out Mike?”

“Real bad.” Richie groaned. This sucked. It took them a week of begging for Sonia to let Eddie come over and all of it was going to be for nothing. Richie had even gotten his parents to go out for the night, not that it mattered quite as much since the walls weren’t quite as thin in Richie’s house. But he would have rather been safe than sorry with the hints that Eddie had been dropping.

“What are we going to do about work? If Eddie isn’t there it’s just going to be me and Richie for the whole restaurant. We all know the alternates suck ass, especially when it’s busy.” Eddie, Bill, and Richie had developed their own way of communicating and running the restaurant’s front of house with the help of Bev and Stan. The other waiters had no idea how any of them ran it, that was why they sucked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Stan spoke up causing the entire table to look confused. “Eddie texted me when he knew I would be awake and asked if I would take his place as server.”

“You’re going to hate being a server. You have to talk to people Stan.”

“I know that Mike. And when I pointed that out to him, he just sent me an entire page of the crying emoji and the word please about fourteen times.”

“Which crying emoji?”

“Waterfall tears.” A unified ‘oh’ escaped from the table. Waterfall tears from Eddie meant that he was actually crying and no one wanted to make Eddie cry. He is an incredibly pretty boy, but he is an ugly crier when it got bad, him being sick made it worse. “See why I just said I would do it?”

“I’ll help clear tables then,” Bev added. Sure, tonight was going to suck at work but hopefully it would distract Richie from how shitty this birthday had been overall. The rest of the school day passed in a blur. Richie had decided during last period that he was going to see Eddie whether he liked it or not. Not seeing Eddie on his birthday was not going to happen. Well, unless Eddie was asleep again.

**Richie: You awake?**

**Eddie: Yeah. I’m still sick though. **

**Richie: I know you are sweetheart. How long till you think you’re asleep again? **

**Eddie: Probably a few hours, why?**

**Eddie: You’re not thinking about coming over, are you?**

**Eddie: Richie I’m sick and I don’t want to get you sick.**

**Richie: It’s my birthday.**

**Eddie: I know. That’s why I don’t want you to get sick. **

**Richie: Please? I just want to see my boyfriend on my birthday. **

**Eddie: No.**

**Richie: Pleeeeaaaase?**

It took Eddie a lot longer to respond this time. Maybe Richie had actually pushed it too far this time. He sighed as he leaned his head back against his seat, shutting his eyes to pretend that it wasn’t just him in the car. His car felt a lot emptier without Eddie in there with him. Richie opened his eyes when his phone buzzed in his hand.

**Eddie: The window is unlocked. My mom is home so you’ll need to be quiet. **

**Richie: Be there in ten minutes. Love you.**

**Eddie: I love you too you asshole. **

Richie smiled to himself as he put his phone down and started the shortish drive to Eddie’s house. It usually was longer but that was only because Richie took the most out of the way route he could because Eddie usually didn’t want to go home, he just wanted to waste time until work.

It was a pretty good thing that Sonia either didn’t know what Richie’s car looked like or he just had the most generic car ever. Richie was able to park across the street and two houses down; it was nice to be able to park at least somewhat close since it was still cold in Maine.

Richie climbed up Eddie’s house and propped himself up on the side of the house to catch his breath, goddamn it was cold. One of Eddie’s neighbors walked past and made eye contact with Richie. Richie just awkwardly waved and hoped that the person wouldn’t tell Sonia. The person waved and continued walking their dog. He turned to face the window and slowly lifted the window slightly, when he didn’t hear anyone talking, he opened the window the rest of the way and stepped inside.

“How was school?” Eddie asked after Richie closed the window and turned to face him completely.

“Awful without you. You’re not allowed to be sick ever again,” Richie answered as he shrugged off his coat and shoes, stashing them under Eddie’s desk.

“It’s not like I wanted to be sick.” Richie sat on Eddie’s bed and stretched his legs out. Eddie almost immediately curled around Richie. He had been freezing all day and since Richie was pretty much always a walking heater, he was hoping to get at least somewhat warmer. Richie sat his cheek on Eddie’s head before quickly pulling away again.

“Dude, you’re burning up.”

“Thank you for the news,” Eddie mocked through a cough.

“Sorry. Just didn’t think your fever would be that high.”

“Did Stan tell you that he was taking my shift tonight?”

“Yeah. We were all confused until he told us about the page of crying emojis you sent him.”

“I knew it would work. I just know how much you hate the alternates.”

“They’re idiots.”

“I know.” Eddie was quiet for a long moment; Richie was mildly concerned that he had fallen asleep again. “I’m sorry that I’m sick on your birthday.”

“It’s okay. We can just postpone all our plans for when you’re better.”

“I can still give you your gift though.” Eddie got up and went over to his closet. Richie decided he should probably sit like a normal person for this so he crossed his legs in front of him. “Close your eyes.” Richie did as he was told without question. Richie could tell when Eddie got back to the bed because of the sniffling as well as the shift in the bed. “Okay, open up.”

Richie opened his eyes and saw that Eddie was just holding what looked like a business card. When Richie looked at it, he noticed that it looked a lot like an appointment card.

“Am I the sick one or something?”

“Just take it and look at it.” Richie finally grabbed the card. He gasped when he finally saw what kind of appointment it was. Richie had been trying to convince Eddie to let him get a tattoo for months, and then he just went and made Richie an appointment all on his own. It wasn’t that he needed his boyfriend’s permission but he thought it would be nice to have since they were both going to have to look at it forever.

“When did?” Richie couldn’t really get out what he was trying to say, luckily Eddie knew.

“I went the other day when I told you I had to go pick up meds for my mom. I stole one of the designs you made that I really liked and the artist was super excited about it.”

“Do I get to know which one it is?”

“Not till it’s done.”

“I want to kiss you so much right now but I know you’ll freak if I do.”

“You just can’t kiss me on the mouth, how about that?”

“I can live with that.” Richie started peppering Eddie’s face with kisses, and he definitely kept going when Eddie started giggling. Eddie was finally able to push Richie away when he started coughing again. The coughing ended with Eddie throwing up again. Richie had noticed beforehand and grabbed the small trashcan for his very sick boyfriend.

“Sorry to ruin the moment,” Eddie said with his head still over the trashcan, he was looking at Richie however. He took a lot of comfort in the small circles Richie was rubbing into his back. He didn’t want Richie to move as he grabbed one of the paper towels from his bedside table to wipe his mouth off with.

“A moment with you can’t be ruined.” At least by Eddie. His mother, who they could hear coming up the stairs, could ruin a moment. Richie cursed under his breath and slid under the bed. They had this routine down to a science. Richie was completely covered and comfortable when Sonia opened up the door.

“Eddie Bear, are you okay?”

“Yeah. I just got sick again.”

“Do you need more of your medicine?” Eddie hadn’t taken any of the medicine his mother gave him. After all the shit she put him through as a child he had his own stash of meds that he would take when he was sick.

“No, I’m okay mama.” She kissed the top of his head and left the room, taking the bag from the trashcan with her. Eddie settled back into his mess of pillows and listened to make sure his mother was actually gone. He heard the voice from downstairs change, meaning his mother was already back to flipping channels. “You can come back out.”

Messy, curly hair appeared by the edge of Eddie’s bed. Richie had uncovered the top half of himself and was now sitting on the floor with his legs still under the bed. He folded his arms on the bed and sat his chin on his arms, it might not be the most comfortable position he had ever been in but he also didn’t really trust Sonia right now.

“I’m sorry about her,” Eddie didn’t know what he was apologizing for specifically but he still found himself apologizing. Richie shrugged as a response. “Don’t you have to get ready for work soon?”

“I don’t want to go.”

“You never do on good days.”

“And this is the worst day so of course not.” Eddie ran slightly sweaty hands through Richie’s hair. “Can I come back over after work?” Eddie didn’t like how pathetic Richie sounded.

“I don’t want you to get sick.” He wanted Richie to be here, but he was also super scared about getting Richie sick.

“I won’t get sick, I’ll be fine.”

“Only if you bring me some more meds.” Maybe the night wouldn’t be quite so awful with Richie there instead of his mother or him being alone. Maybe he would also be able to get some actual sleep.

Richie would totally get sick.

**Saturday, April 23rd – Prom**

**Richie: Hey I’m outside your house. **Richie had checked how his hair looked about ten times as he waited for Eddie in his car. When there was still no sign of Eddie he got out and went up to the house. He was about to knock when he finally heard the arguing from inside the house.

“Mom, I’m not hiding some girl from you. I am going to prom with my _friends_,” what Eddie was saying was technically true. They were all going as a group but they all had dates. Knowing that was the case, didn’t make it sting any less, especially how much emphasis he put on the word friends. Sonia didn’t know about them. She knew that they were close, but she didn’t know the half of it. Richie didn’t really appreciate that fact but he also understood that Sonia wasn’t as cool as his parents had become.

“Then why do you have flowers pinned to your lapel?”

“All my friends have these. It’s how you can tell we’re together.” That was a lie, the tiny bouquet on his lapel only matched Richie’s. Richie noticed how utterly strained Eddie’s voice sounded. He had clearly been having this argument for a while, the least Richie could do was end it.

His knock on the door was almost immediately answered by a flustered, but still adorable looking Eddie. He may have been planning their colors for a month now but his final decision was still a really nice one. Richie had insisted on a floral shirt he found and refused to budge because a solid color was ‘boring as fuck’. Giving up on the matter, Eddie went with one of the darker pinks that could be seen in the flowers. Eddie also had to find flowers to match the shirt that Richie had.

“You look nice,” Richie said in a low voice.

“Thanks. You too.”

“Eddie, who’s at the door?” Sonia called from her stop on the chair in the middle of the room. Eddie seemed to be thinking incredibly hard about something before he apparently finished weighing his options and made a decision.

“Your doors unlocked?” Richie nodded, although he still had no clue what was going on in Eddie’s head. Eddie pulled Richie into the house just enough for his mother to see. Richie went to drop Eddie’s hand out of habit but the little trouble maker held on tight. He sounded incredibly devious as he spoke again. “It’s Richie, my boyfriend.”

“Excuse me?” Sonia straightened but did not stand up. Sonia had also broken out her serious mother voice which Richie wanted to pretend didn’t scare him a little bit, not much though. He could outrun her.

“My boyfriend,” Eddie didn’t lose any resolve against the voice that normally broke him.

“And how long has this been going on?”

“Years,” Eddie sounded almost like he was mocking her. He was. He was finally letting his mother in on what he considered to be a well-kept secret.

“Almost like all of this was some bluff, she said, “Prove it.” prove it Eddie did. He shrugged lightly and pulled Richie over to him, reaching up on his tiptoes to kiss Richie. Richie, of course, immediately sank into the kiss like they had done it hundreds of times, because they had. Although, this was the first time they had done this in front of a parent, usually keeping it to light pecks on cheeks when they were around Richie’s parents.

Eddie pulled away and whispered, “Run,” just loud enough to break through Richie’s haze so he didn’t fall out the door he was suddenly being dragged through. By the time Richie was pulling off the street, Sonia had reached the front door, yelling at the two of them but they couldn’t hear it.

“I can’t believe I did that.” Richie expected Eddie to sound upset or like he regretted it, but he sounded elated.

“I can’t believe you did that. Your mom is going to rail into you when you get home tonight.”

“If I go home tonight.” Richie couldn’t really look over at his boyfriend but he could side-eye him and notice the look on Eddie’s face, the tone of his voice matched the implications. “We could always just go back to your house.”

“My parents are going to be home tonight.”

“You have a pretty roomie back seat.”

“You are not going to make this easy for me tonight, are you?”

“No, I am not. Now hurry up, Mike just texted me and asked where we are.”

“What excuse are you giving them?”

“My mother.” They didn’t need all the details right now, that would ruin his fun for the night. Eddie turned his attention to the world passing him out the side window. The world was coming alive against after the fairly harsh winter they had.

“Hey,” Eddie turned back to his boyfriend in the driver seat, which was a view he enjoyed a lot, “I’m glad you told her.”

“I know.” It was no secret that Richie hated hiding his relationship with Eddie from anyone. As far as he was concerned anyone who disagreed with their relationship could get fucked.

“Eddie said they just left his neighborhood, guess Sonia was being Sonia,” Mike noticed that his “date” sighed heavily, “Your girlfriend running late?”

“Yeah. She said she’ll be here soon.” Mike was being a good person and was on a fake date with Jenna, a girl in their class, who was actually dating a girl the year below them, Mike couldn’t remember what her name was. Jenna’s parents didn’t know she had a girlfriend and she was just trying to get through high school without her parents blowing up on her. Mike had a habit of dancing with anyone that looked too lonely at these types of things so he didn’t care to be someone’s fake date.

“So, how long are you forcing me to stay here?” Stan asked Bill in a low voice. The only reason he was here was because Bill really wanted to go. Apparently, last year he came with some girl that he didn’t really remember but he knows that she ditched him for most of it so she could get high in the bathroom. He wanted to go to al least one dance and enjoy himself.

“Not too long. At least one slow dance and I want to see who wins prom king and queen.”

“You just want to see Bowers lose so you can make fun of him relentlessly.”

“You are absolutely right.” Stan rolled his eyes. “Did I tell you that you looked really good tonight?”

“I think you mentioned it once or twice.” Four times, but really who was counting.

“Well, I still mean it.”

“Hey lovebirds,” they both looked over when Bev spoke, they were the only two she referred to as lovebirds, “Richie and Eddie are here, you ready to head in?” Stan was very surprised that she didn’t add some other snarky comment. He did however get a snarky look from Richie, although there was some semblance of joy under all that sass. It was a look of Richie’s he only ever got when Bill was involved; who had also decided that this was a great time to wrap his arm around Stan, making him jump slightly.

“Watch yourself Denbrough.” Bill laughed at that as they walked into the building. The entire group was both surprised and not surprised once they got into the ballroom. Derry had rented out the ballroom of a nearby art museum. They had all expected loud music, bright lights, and the mass of people in the middle of the room. They hadn’t expected it to be a live band. They hadn’t expected there to be no food.

“What the hell, there were cookies last year,” Eddie commented.

“Why don’t you ask Bev. It’s the same reason we can’t have bags,” Mike said.

“In my defense, they didn’t tell me that I couldn’t take a lot of cookies.”

“Yes they did. You promptly made eye contact and dumped a tray of cookies into your bag.” Bev went to glare at her boyfriend but was soon laughing at the memory.

“They were good cookies.”

“You had crumbs and icing in your purse for like a month and complained the whole time.” Bev shrugged and went to drag Ben towards the dance floor before remembering that Ben couldn’t dance much because of a sprained ankle.

“It’s fine, take Bill.”

“Are you not dancing?” Bill asked Stan.

“I don’t dance in front of other people unless I’m very not sober. So go, dance with Bev and I’ll keep Ben company.” Bill leaned over and kissed Stan’s cheek begore following the other out. Ben and Stan found a table to sit at and got comfortable.

They watched all their friends dance. Richie purposefully danced like an idiot as an attempt to embarrass Eddie, although he seemed on top of the world today so he didn’t care. Well, all of them danced like that. No matter how ridiculous it was, it did make Stan and Ben laugh between their conversations about the books the two of them were reading.

After almost an hour and a half, they finally announced who was king and queen. It wasn’t Bowers so Bill was going to be happy. That also meant that the first slow dance of the night was coming up, meaning both of them were going to have to get up and dance.

“May I have this dance?” Stan looked up when the obnoxious question was thrown his way. Bill looked far too pleased with himself for getting to be this cheesy out in public.

“I guess.” Stan let himself get pulled up from his seat and to the edge of the dancefloor.

“Thank you, for agreeing to come with me.”

“I’m your boyfriend, why wouldn’t I come with you?” Stan didn’t get an answer and instead just got a raised eyebrow, “Okay, fair point. But we both know I would’ve been jealous as shit if you even thought about going with someone else had I said no. Also, then you would’ve moped all day and I didn’t want to deal with that.”

“That was a long-winded way to tell me that you’re glad you said yes.”

“I am glad I said yes. I mean this dance is boring as hell, but at least I’m with you.”

“Despite you refusing to dance.”

“I have my reasons,” Bill could tell from Stan’s tine that there were some bad memories attached to those reasons.

“Was this okay?” Stan smiled at how concerned Bill seemed about making sure things were okay. It had been almost a year and the sentiment never changed. Stan appreciated that.

“This is fine. I would’ve said something had it not been.” Bill knew that wasn’t true. There had been more than once that he had accidentally done something he shouldn’t have and only found out after. But he wasn’t about to point that out. Not right now. Right now, he was just going to enjoy the night with his boyfriend.

**Saturday, May 18th – Graduation **

The gymnasium was crowded and hot and everyone wanted nothing more than leave, but this was honestly the day they had been working towards for the last four years. High school had been the regular hell that it had been for everyone, with a few extra bumps in the road for the Losers Club. Whether it be Bowers being an asshole since birth or some terrible exes that deserved to be forgotten or rumors that had persisted for the last eleven months, high school was terrible and they were more than ready to leave.

They hadn’t been paying attention to the speeches. Their group chat had been blowing up trying to figure out their plans for the rest of the day. They had decided, not surprisingly, to get drunk in the Hanlon’s barn. They could go to the barrens but that meant one of them had to stay sober because Stan and Eddie refused to camp. None of them were having graduation parties because they didn’t really like all that many people. The baseball team had a group graduation party-thing the night before so at least they were able to go to one big party.

Richie had convinced his parents to get them more alcohol than normal since he graduated with a 4.3 GPA and was only not given one of the top spots because the faculty was far too afraid of what he would say, and for very good reason. This was Richie and he had a habit of speaking his mind without any real regard for what other people thought. He was also this thing called an enabler so he would certainly encourage other speakers to follow his lead.

Eddie wanted to pretend that he was paying attention, but he couldn’t even attempt to do so when his head was swimming. A month ago he told his mother that he was dating Richie. Sonia decided to just ignore the situation and change the topic whenever Eddie brought it up. Which he supposed was better than her screaming at him, which is what he had been expecting. Eddie hadn’t told her yet that he was going to be living with Richie when they went away to college and he couldn’t really decide if he wanted to tell her or not. He was leaning towards no.

All of them only seemed to come out of some weird daze when they were all forced to stand. Moving the tassel from one side to another seemingly gave them their freedom. A single toss of a cap solidified the sentiment.

After about a hundred photos were taken by parents the group was finally able to escape to have some actual fun, only to get bombarded by Mike’s grandparents for more pictures. They were providing them a place to crash and get real fucked up so they let it slide with minimal to no complaining.

“Well bitches,” Richie announced raising his cup into the air as they all stood around their tiny firepit outside the barn, “We didn’t fucking die.”

“Only four more years,” Bill added under his breath so only Stan could hear. They weren’t about to rain on Richie’s parade for this one. Richie had _hated _high school and had made up his mind that college would somehow be better. They weren’t really sure if that would be true, but it couldn’t be much worse.

“To the future,” Richie said, ending his kinda toast. They all down part of their drinks.

“Do you think we’ll all be together, in the future? Like past college,” Bev wondered aloud. It was no secret that she had issues trusting people and letting them in, but she was also fairly certain she would never find people as amazing as the boys around her.

“Of course we are. Why would you think otherwise?” Mike asked, sitting down on one of the blankets, the rest of them followed suit.

“I don’t know. Sometimes people say that they’ll stay together and then they drift apart. It’s pretty natural.”

“Something feels different though,” Bill said, “And not just because I’m dating one of you. This all feels like it was meant to be. Like some other being is stitching our lives and stories together in some fantastical way.”

“And this is why you want to be a writer,” Ben commented.

“Shut the fuck up,” Bill said through a laugh before taking a drink.

“I thought it was a nice sentiment,” Bev said.

“Did you think it’s weird that we’re supposed to know exactly what we want to do with our entire lives at this young?” Eddie asked.

“I mean a lot of us at least have an idea but I guess,” Mike said.

“What do you guys want to do?” Eddie asked he knew that he had heard about what all his friends wanted to do but he totally couldn’t remember right now. He had probably not been sober when they had talked about this last time.

“I want to be a historian,” Mike answered.

“Be an architect,” Ben said.

“Design clothes for people of all body types because all women should feel beautiful,” that one seemed the most obvious when Eddie took more than three seconds to think about it.

“Well, Ben already pointed out that I want to be a writer.”

Richie didn’t say anything for a moment before he finally said, “I want to create art. I don’t care what kind.”

“I just want to get better,” they all looked over at Stan’s comment. He had made progress, he was willing to admit that, but he still felt like there was more that he would need to do to really feel like he was okay again. Bill sat his hand over Stan’s.

“You will. I know it,” Bev said.

“Thank you,” Stan made sure to put on an overdramatic, Richie-like tone to lighten the mood of the room. He had brought it down slightly so he brought it back up.

Eddie leaned back onto his hands and listened to his friends ramble on about nothing and everything at the same time. He remembered having a plan for his future when he was younger. He wanted to be a doctor and heal people who were sick like him. This was before he learned that his mother had been lying to him for his entire life. Now, he didn’t really know what he wanted to do. He only knew a few things for sure. He wanted to support his friends whatever way he could and he wanted to be happy. Whatever let him do both of those things was fine with him.

“You doing okay?” Richie asked against Eddie’s hair, keeping his voice low enough so that the other couldn’t hear.

“Yeah. I’m fine,” Richie didn’t look convinced, “I am. Promise.” Richie would at least give him the rest of the night until he asked the question again. But he would get the same answer every time he asked. Eddie really was okay, as strange as that seemed for him.

**Saturday, May 25th \- Bill and Stan’s anniversary **

Stan was trying not to shiver as they drove back to Bill’s house. But Bill had been complaining about being hot and when Stan suggested Bill take his flannel off, he said no because this one was new so Stan wasn’t allowed to steal it yet. So instead they were being a little illegal and Stan was curled up against Bill’s side, Bill was really good at driving with one hand, mostly because of this.

“Will you at least let me turn the AC down?”

“We’re almost back to my house.”

“Why are you being so difficult today?” Bill didn’t mean to be difficult, he just really needed Stan to be at least somewhat cold when they got home. If he wasn’t then the first part of Bill’s surprise wasn’t to work as well. He had all of this planned out and he just wanted it to work as well as it did in his head.

“I’m sorry. You can turn it down if you want.”

“It’s fine.”

“Something wrong?” Stan was acting sad; he wasn’t allowed to be sad today.

“It’s just- It’s our anniversary and I feel like we didn’t do anything. At least not anything we wouldn’t normally do.”

“Well, my thought is that this is the first of many and I want to save all the big things for bigger anniversaries.” That was a lie. Bill was willing, and wanted, to do something big for Stan every anniversary. Big. Small. It didn’t matter.

“You’re cheesy,” Stan smirked as he said that, which made Bill feel a little better, at least Stan seemed like he was in a slightly better mood.

“Hey, when we get to my house you can always steal one of my sweaters.”

“Yeah,” Stan said sarcastically.

“Are most of them at your house?”

“Maybe.”

“I might have one you can steal then.” Stan grinned to himself and curled more into Bill’s side despite the fact that they were turning into their neighborhood. He was cold and enjoyed cuddling way too much.

“You know you love seeing me in your sweaters.”

“I still need them back at some point.”

“You get them back like once a month, calm down,” Stan said as they pulled into Bill’s driveway. “And soon enough you’ll be living with me so they’ll always be there.” They both liked the idea of living together. Not only were all of them going to the same school. Eddie, Richie, Bill, and Stan had all gotten on the Honors floor and were sharing a suite. Ben, Bev, and Mike were all in the next building over.

“We don’t live together yet,” Stan responded with a noncommittal noise as Bill turned his truck off. “Okay, just cause you spend the night, a lot, doesn’t mean we live together, as much as I would like us to.”

“I could always move in.”

“My mom joked about that one time.”

“Six times,” Stan corrected and sat up completely. Bill looked at his phone and was really glad that he had the text he was waiting for.

“Get out of my truck,” Bill joked at Stan’s smug face. They both exited the truck and Stan aggressively shivered, Bill noticed. As much as he knew his boyfriend hated to be that cold, it was going to work out perfectly for him. “You want to grab a sweater from my room?”

“Do you have any?” Stan asked following Bill up the drive.

“Yeah, I should.” Stan walked into the house and started heading upstairs, he didn’t notice how quickly Bill rushed out the back door.

As of recently, Stan had spent more nights at Bill’s house than his own. This was for no particular reason other than he liked to and Bill’s bed was softer than his, he slept better. He also felt kinda weird in his house, almost like someone was watching him. If he ever got that feeling here, he didn’t notice.

So, since he had spent pretty much the last month in this room, he noticed instantly the sweater that was sitting on the foot of Bill’s bed, and he totally knew that it was one Bill did not own a week ago when he raided the closet. Stan picked up the folded piece of paper sitting on top of it. Bill’s neat, tiny handwriting decorated the paper.

_Come outside when you’re done. I have something for you, _the note read. Stan was incredibly confused but decided to turn his attention to the sweater that was so neatly folded by Bill’s mother. Bill didn’t know how to fold clothes. Stan had pointed the sweater out when they all went thrift shopping so Bev could get some costume pieces for the school show. Stan liked that it was rainbow stripes but that they were all darker, definitely making it look like a sweater an old man would wear which was his aesthetic some days.

Stan slid the sweater over his button-up, making sure the top peeked out over the collar. Upon deciding that he looked fine, well more than fine but that wasn’t the point, he made his way to the back yard.

He could see part of what was in the yard when he got to the kitchen, but it became so much clearer when slid the glass door open and stepped outside. Hanging from one of the tree limbs were long strings with something attached to them. As Stan got closer to them, he noticed that they were pictures of the two of them, most of which were taken by Bill or their friends, and pieces of paper that had some of Bill’s favorite memories from the past year.

He saw Bill standing in the small gazebo that the Denbrough’s had in their backyard, they had that because they wanted to feel fancy. Bill and his brother had strung fairy lights around it and let some of them hang down the open parts of the structure. Stan was pretty sure he heard music playing but he was still a little too stunned by everything else around him.

“What is all this?”

“It’s our anniversary,” Bill said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, which it kind of was.

“I know that. I thought you said you didn’t really want to do anything other than spend the day together. I had to convince you to go see a movie and go out to lunch.”

“I mean yeah, but I wanted this to be a surprise. I just wanted to show you how much you mean to me and how amazing this past year has been.” Stan smiled at Bill before he wrapped his arms around Bill’s neck and pulled him closer, he ended up tucking his head into the side of Bill’s neck.

From this close Bill could smell the lilac scent of Stan’s shampoo. From this close Bill was pretty sure he could feel Stan’s heartbeat tapping against his own. From this close Bill could feel the slight shake in Stan as he tried to hide that he was crying slightly.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” He whispered to Stan, there was no need to whisper but Stan didn’t like crying. Stan pulled his head off of Bill and wiped the stray tears off of his face with the sleeve of his sweater.

“No one has ever done anything this nice or romantic for me. It’s just a lot all at once I think.” Bill hadn’t let go of Stan; strong arms were still looped around him. Stan took some comfort in that. Even though Stan seemed like he was freaking out, Bill wasn’t letting go.

“I’m sorry. I can tone it down next time.”

“Don’t you dare.” Bill smiled at how serious Stan sounded with that statement. “I love all of this, it’s just something I need to get used to. Bill, this is the first real and healthy relationship I’ve ever been in.”

“Me too.” Stan returned his arms to be wrapped around Bill’s neck again. The mood had lightened again.

“Is this something I should expect every year?”

“Not this specifically, but something big yes.” Bill didn’t expect Stan to do the same for him, but things like this weren’t how Stan showed he cared. Stan showed that he cared in a lot of little gestures, like lending Bill a book he loves or making Bill’s coffee in the very specific way he drinks it. Stan pulled Bill’s face towards his own and kissed him. It was far from the first time they had kissed like this but it was something neither of them got tired of.

“It’s a good thing I love you.”

“I love you too, my little birdie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol this is really late. The reason is, it was honestly really hard for me to write a graduation section because my own college graduation was canceled because of the Rona, so yeah. I might change that part later but I really wanted to get the rest of the chapter up so that this could all be posted.


End file.
